"  Bertha  and  her  companion  pansed  and  watched.'' 

(A  Terrible  Inheritance.) 


^5^V 


A  TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE 


m 


GRANT   ALLEN 


NEW  YORK:    46  East  mth   Street 

THOMAS    Y.    CROWELL   &    CO. 

BOSTON:    100  Purchase  Street 


'■•n'\ 


,  r 


/I2T3 


A  TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

By    grant    ALLEN. 


I. 

The  garden-party  at  the  Woolryches^  was  a  great 
success.  Harry  Prior,  the  young  doctor  who  had 
come  to  Melbury  some  weeks  before,  had  never  seen 
Bertha  Woolrych  looking  sweeter  or  prettier  in  her 
innocent  girlhood  than  she  did  that  memorable  Tues- 
day. Bertha  was  a  tall  and  stately  girl,  with  jet- 
black  hair  and  large  dark  eyes,  and  Harry  had 
admired  her  from  the  very  first  day  he  saw  her, 
with  an  admiration  ever  steadily  increasing.  As  she 
moved  about  gracefully  among  the  groups  of  scat- 
tered guests  on  the  lawn  that  cloudless  August  day, 
with  a  happy  smile  and  a  pleasant  word  for  all  alike, 
Harry  said  to  himself,  with  a  thrill  in  his  heart, 
"Whatever  comes,  I  must  make  her  mine  for  ever 
and  ever." 

The  Woolryches'  house  was  one  of  the  numerous 
handsome  modern  buildings  that  crowd  th<^  old  Park 
Hill  and  overlook  the  sea  at  Melbury  Regis  ;  and  the 
hall  was  filled  with  endless  mementos  of  Sir  Arthur 
Woolrych's  many  campaigns  in  all  climates  of  the 
earth,  from  Japan  to  the  Cape,  and  from  Canada  to 
India.  Snowshoes  and  toboggans  in  the  big  trophy 
by  the  front  door  jostled  oddly  against  Zulu  assegais 

3 


4  A   TERIUIILE  INHERITANCE. 

ami  Australian  boonit'raiigs  ;  West  African  calabashes 
and  Jamaican  obeali-sticks  Imnj^'  side  by  side  with 
American  butTalo-heads  and  long  woven  strings  of 
beads  and  wampum.  The  whole  house  was  indeed  a 
sort  of  amateur  domestic  museum,  crammed  to  the 
attics  with  those  numberless  curiosities  which  Sir 
Arthur's  taste  for  queer  outlandish  places  and  people 
had  l)rought  together  from  the  four  quarters  of  this 
strangely  peopled  modern  world  of  ours. 

A  group  of  young  men  lounged  idly  chatting  in 
the"  hospitable  vestibule.  One  of  them  took  down  a 
quaint-looking  bow  and  a  bamboo-tipped  arrow  from 
a  nail  in  the  hall.  ".Odd  sort  of  archery,  this,"  he 
said  with  a  smile  to  his  next  neighbor.  "  Andaman 
Islander's,  or  something  of  the  sort.  I  wonder,  now, 
whether  one  could  hit  a  target  at  fifty  yards  with  it  ?  " 

''  I  wouldn't  advise  you  to  try,  Wilson,"  the  elder 
of  the  two  answered  carelessly.  "  Sir  Arthur  wouldn't 
like  your  playing  with  his  curios.  He's  a  rusty 
crusty  old  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  you  know, 
and  he  thinks  a  lot  of  these  rusty  crusty  old  spears 
and  arrowheads  of  his.  You  won't  get  asked  to  Lady 
Woolrych's  next  At  Home,  I  promise  you,  if  you  go 
playing  tricks  with  the  knobkerries  and  the  tiger- 
claws."  • 

The  3'oung  man  laughed  and  turned  away  care- 
lessly. "  I  think  I'll  have  a  shot  with  them,  all  the 
same,"  he  answered  with  a  curl  of  the  lip.  "  They've 
got  the  targets  out  down  on  the  lawn  there,  beyond 
the  tennis  court.  Let's  have  a  try,  anyhow.  I  should 
like  to  make  a  bull's-eye  w4th  an  antediluvian  arrow, 
I  say,  Maitland,  I'm  going  down  to  take  a  turn  at 
archery." 

He  strolled  across  the  lawn  in  a  lazy,  easy,  jaunty 


A    TElililllLE  INIfEniTANCE.  9 

mannor,  with  tlie  bow  and  the  splinter-tipped  arrow 
in  his  hand,  and  eame  soon  to  the  part  of  the  grounds 
where  the  straw-backed  targets  stood  out  in  a  long 
row  together  against  the  clear  sky  line.  Bertha 
Woolrych,  their  host's  daughter,  leaned  against  the 
parapet  of  the  terrace  hard  by,  talking  with  her 
bright  smile  to  one  of  the  guests,  and  beside  her 
Tay,  her  shaggy  Skye  terrier,  lay  basking  in  the  sun, 
with  his  hair  in  liis  eyes  after  the  fashion  forever 
beloved  of  his  kind.  But  as  soon  as  young  Wilson 
raised  the  bow  at  arm's-length,  and  began  to  fit  the 
arrow  to  the  taut  string,  Tay  jumped  up  in  an  agony 
of  delight  (for  he  loved  archery),  and  rushed  forward 
towards  the  target,  barking  and  leaping  in  eager 
anticipation  of  the  coming  sport.  Bertha  and  her 
companion^  paused  and  watched,  and  a  little  group 
gathered  around  at  once  to  observe  the  fate  of  the 
barbaric  arrow. 

In  a  second,  almost  before  they  knew  what  had 
happened,  the  arrow,  missing  its  hold,  had  darted 
obliquely  from  the  stretched  string,  and  flying  aside,^ 
partly  through  a  twist  in  the  warped  shaft,  but  partly 
also  from  the  archer^s  inexperience,  had  missed  the 
target  altogether,  and  fallen  beyond  it,  a  yard  or  two 
to  the  left  of  the  point  aimed  at.  A  little  peal  of 
laughter  went  up  for  the  young  man's  discomfiture 
from  the  group  of  spectators ;  next  moment,  it  was 
interrupted  by  a  loud  yelp  of  sudden  pain  from  Tay, 
who  bounded  wildly  into  the  air,  and  then  fell  back 
upon  the  lawn,  quivering  convulsively.  Bertha  saw 
with  horror  that  he  had  lain  half  hidden  in  the 
unmown  grass  behind  the  archery  plot,  and  that  the 
bamboo  tip  had  hit  him  in  the  side,  where  his  wound 
was  already  bleeding  profusely. 


6  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  rushed  to  the  spot  at  once, 
almost  before  the  others  could  close  in  around  the 
poor  wounded  and  paralyzed  animal.  Tay  lay  rigid 
and  motionless  upon  the  grass,  only  a  faint  trembling 
of  his  lips  and  feet  betraying  that  any  trace  of  life 
was  still  left  in  him.  The  effect  was  instantaneous 
and  almost  magical ;  he  seemed  to  be  stiffened  out 
like  a  corpse  at  once,  and  to  be  suffering  from  some 
terrible  internal  agony.  Sir  Arthur  approached  and 
drew  out  the  arrow  from  the  slight  wound  with  a 
stern  look  round  upon  the  hushed  sjiectators.  "  This 
is  one  of  the  Guiana  arrows,"  he  said,  glancing  around 
him  angrily.  "Who  has  done  this  ?  The  poor  beast 
is  evidently  worse  than  wounded.  How  foolish  to 
play  tricks  with  edged  tools !  The  point  must  have 
been  poisoned,  as  many  of  these  savage  weapons 
often  are.  I  never  allow  anybody  in  the  house  to 
handle  them." 

Bertha  seized  the  stiff  and  trembling  dog  eagerly 
in  her  arms,  and  wrapped  him  up  in  her  own  light 
Shetland  woollen  wrapper.  "  Oh !  is  there  any 
doctor  here  who  can  come  and  look  at  him  ? "  she 
cried  piteously.  "  Poor  dear  Tay !  just  look  how 
glazed  and  agonized  his  e3^es  are  ! " 

"Mr.  Prior's  here,"  somebody  answered  in  haste 
from  the  group.  "  He  knows  more  about  poisons  and 
poisoning  than  alL.ost  any  other  man  in  all  England. 
He's  made  a  special  study  of  it,  I  know.  Mr.  Prior ! 
Mr.  Prior  !     Come  here,  you're  wanted." 

Harry  Prior  hurried  across  the  lawn  with  rapid 
steps  in  answer  to  the  call,  and  came  up  quickly  to 
where  Bertha  had  thrown  herself  on  her  knees  upon 
the  grass,  with  the  poor  beast  growing  every  moment 
more  rigid  and  deathlike  in  her  trembling  arms.     He 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  f 

tiook  the  dog  from  her  hands  tenderly,  and  examined 
it  with  care  for  a  few  seconds.  Then  he  said  in  a 
tone  of  considerable  surprise,  "  This  is  a  very  remark- 
able case  !  How  on  earth  did  the  accident  happen  ? 
If  it  weren't  impossible,  I  should  say  the  animal  had 
been  poisoned  with  curari." 

"  What's  curari  ? "  Bertha  asked  in  breathless 
eagerness. 

"Curari?"  Harry  repeated.  "Why,  the  South 
American  Indian  arrow-poison.  It's  very  much  used 
you  know,  by  the  Guiana  Indians.  They  smear  it  on 
their  splintered  bamboo  arrowheads,  and  it  retains  its 
fatal  power  for  an  incredible  time.  It  produces  te- 
tanus, just  like  what  this  poor  dog's  now  suffering  from. 
But  how  on  earth  could  any  curari  have  got  to  Mel- 
bury  ?  I'm  the  only  person  in  the  place  at  all  likely 
to  have  any  in  his  possession." 

Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  held  up  the  guilty  arrow 
before  his  face.  "This  is  what  did  it,"  he  said, 
sternly.  "  It's  a  Guiana  specimen.  Some  young  fool 
or  other  has  taken  it  down  from  its  peg  in  the  hall, 
and  gone  aiming  stupidly  with  it  at  the  target.  He 
pulled  badly  —  people  who  meddle  with  these  things 
are  always  just  the  very  ones  who  know  nothing  on 
earth  about  them  —  and  the  thing  slipped,  and  went 
off  crooked,  and  wounded  poor  Tay,  who  was  hidden 
behind  the  target.  I've  no  doubt  it  is  curari.  I  was 
always  afraid  those  tips  might  be  poisoned.'- 

Harry  Prior  gave  a  sigh  of  sudden  relief.  "  I  am 
glad  of  that,"  he  said.  "  I  was  half  afraid  at  first  — 
though  I'm  always  very  careful  —  that  I  myself  migh^ 
somehow  be  the  culprit.  I  didn't  think  it  likely  any- 
body else  at  Melbury  would  have  any  curari,  and  I 
began  to  wonder  whether  by  any  extraordinary  mis- 


8  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

chance  or  other  I  might  have  left  a  trace  of  it  about 
undestroyed  anywhere."         '  ^ 

"  But  my  poor  dog ! "  Bertha  cried  anxiously.  "  See 
what  pain  he's  in !  Mr.  Prior,  Mr.  Prior,  can't  you 
do  anything,  please,  to  save  him  ?  " 

"  A  week  ago,"  Harry  Prior  answered  at  once,  "  I 
should  have  said  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  '  iVb, 
the  case  is  hopeless.'  Till  then,  no  antidote  had  ever 
been  even  suggested  for  curari.  But,  within  the  last 
few  days  I  have  had  one  sent  me  for  trial  from  South 
America  —  a  powder  made  from  another  local  herb, 
whose  properties  I  had  reason  to  suspect  of  being 
antagonistic  to  those  of  the  drug,  and  we  can  at  least 
try  it.  If  it  succeeds,  we  shall  have  discovered  a 
new  cure  for  the  most  terrible  form  of  poisoning  yet 
known  to  medical  science." 

"  How  lucky  you  were  here ! "  Bertha  cried 
delighted. 

"  Yes,"  Harry  said.  "  If  the  experiment  is  success- 
ful it  will  indeed  be  lucky.  It  will  save  not  only 
your  dog's  life,  which  to  me,  of  course,  is  no  small 
matter,  but  innumerable  human  lives  as  well,  I  trust, 
in  the  future." 

Bertha  blushed  as  her  eyes  met  his.  Harry  wrapped 
the  dog  carefully  up  in  the  shawl,  and  saying  hastily 
that  the  treatment  must  be  tried  at  once  if  it  was  to 
be  tried  at  all,  went  off  as  quickly  as  he  could  to  his 
own  surgery. 


ll. 

■  ■  h 

To  Harry  Prior's  immense  delight,  the  antidote 
acted  with  almost  as  marvellous  rapidity  as  the  poison 
itself  had  done.     Scarcely  had  he  injected  the  new 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  0 

solution  into  the  wound,  and  washed  it  well  with  the 
untried  powder,  when  the  stiffened  limbs  began  to 
relax  once  more  as  if  by  magic,  and  the  tightened 
breath  to  come  and  go  in  the  poor  creature's  limbs  with 
greater  freedom.  Harry  laid  the  dog  in  a  basket  by 
the  kitchen  fire,  gave  it  some  warm  m;lk  to  drink,  and 
continued  the  treatment  with  assiduous  care  for  a  few 
hours.  Before  nine  o'clock  Tay  had  recovered  the  use 
of  his  limbs  as  usual,  and  was  barking  loudly  to 
return  to  his  mistress. 

At  that  moment  Harry  Prior's  heart  was  full  to 
overflowing.  Human  nature,  indeed,  is  strangely  com- 
pounded. He  had  made  a  great  medical  discovery. 
It  would  relieve  in  future  an  immense  mass  of  human 
suffering.  It  would  prevent,  in  all  probability,  the 
commission  of  hideous  crimes.  It  would  perhaps 
prove  of  immense  use  to  medicine  generally.  But 
Harry  Prior  thought  first  of  none  of  these  things  just 
then,  dear  as  they  would  have  b^en  to  his  heart  at 
other  times.  Nor  did  he  think  either  of  the  honor, 
credit,  position,  and  wealth,  which  such  a  discovery 
might  possibly  bestow  upon  him.  No ;  he  thought 
first  that  it  was  Bertha  Woolrych's  dog  he  had  cured, 
and  that  Bertha  Woolrych  would  be  grateful  for  his 
services. 

He  carried  the  dog  round  carefully  to  the  house 
once  more,  and  was  shown  into  the  room  where  the 
family  were  sitting.  Bertha  was  delighted  at  her 
pet's  recovery,  and  full  of  gratitude  for  Harry's  care 
and  skill  exerted  in  curing  him.  Harry,  too,  felt 
somewhat  flushed  by  this  time  with  the  joy  of  his  un- 
expected success.  "It's  a  great  triumph,"  he  said 
warmly  to  Sir  Arthur.  "You  know,  curari  has 
always  hitherto  been  looked  upon  as  incurable." 


10  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  ' 

'/ 

"I  know  it,"  Sir  Arthur  responded  curtly,  "I  —  IVe 
always  known  it,  ever  since  the  famous  Lichfield 
case.  It  was  the  stuff  you  know,  that  Lichfield  used 
to  commit  his  terrible  crime  with  —  the  Erith  murder, 
as  peoi)le  called  it." 

Harry  Prior  gave  a  sudden  start  of  surprise.  "  You 
remember  the  Lichfield  case,  then  ? "  lie  said  with 
interest,  for  questions  of  the  sort  belonged  especially 
to  his  own  department.  "  You  knew  that  Lichfield 
used  curari  ?  " 

"  Well,  yes,"  Sir  Arthur  answered,  with  a  certain 
show  of  reluctance  in  his  voice.  "  I  had  reason  to 
know  it.  The  Lichfields  were  once  intimate  friends 
of  mine.  Poor  Lichfield  was  a  doctor,  as  you  must 
remember,  and  he  poisoned  a  patient,  an  uncle  of  his, 
who,  he  had  reason  to  know,  had  lately  made  a  will  in 
his  favor.  That  was  twenty-five  years  ago,  I  should 
think.  But  of  course  you've  read  all  about  it,  Mr. 
Prior." 

"  I  have,"  Harry  answered.  '^  I  recollect  the  case 
extremely  well.  Lichfield  was  himself  a  worker  at 
poisons,  just  as  I  am,  and  I  feel  particularly  interested 
in  the  Erith  murder,  because  of  a  very  curious  coinci- 
dence which  happened  to  me,  myself,  some  months 
ago.  I  had  just  invented  what  seemed  to  me  a  plaus- 
ible theory  of  the  action  of  strychnine,  and  I  sent  a 
paper  on  the  subject  to  the  ^  Transactions  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Physicians,'  detailing  my  principle.  To  my 
immense  surprise,  the  secretary  sent  me  back  a  copy 
of  a  paper,  contributed  nearly  thirty  years  ago  to  the 
same  *  Transactions,'  by  Dr.  Lichfield,  in  which  the 
very  theory  I  had  hit  upon  was  distinctly  foreshad- 
owed, and  almost  in  the  very  selfsame  words.  It 
shows   how  much  alike   two  minds  may  work  on  a 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  '    11 

single  subject,  that  Dr.  Lichiield  used  several  of  the 
very  same  illustrations  and  examples  and  analogies 
that  I  did,  and  that  his  style  and  manner  were  all  but 
identical  in  every  way  with  my  own." 

Sir  Arthur  looked  at  the  handsome  dark  young 
doctor's  large  eyes  inquisitively  for  a  moment.  A 
shade  seemed  to  cross  his  bronzed  brow.  Then  he 
said  abruptly,  "  Lichfield  was  a  very  handsome  dark 
man,  with  most  peculiar  eyes.  I  can  see  him  now 
standing  before  me.  Poor  fellow  ;  I  was  always  pro- 
foundly sorry  for  him.  Though  he  committed  that 
terrible,  monstrous  crime,  he  always  seemed  to  me,  as 
far  as  I  could  judge,  a  very  affectionate,  kind-hearted 
man.  I  suppose  the  love  of  gain  overbore  everything. 
And  yet  we  never  thought  him  an  avaricious  man.  It 
was  curious,  curious.  I  was  always  glad  he  never 
lived  to  get  through  his  trial." 

"  He  died  while  the  trial  was  iu  progress,  I  think," 
Harry  said,  suggesting. 

"  He  died  while  it  was  in  progress  Died  of  grief 
and  shame,  I  suppose,  for  the  evil  he  had  wrought. 
Couldn't  face  the  degradation  of  his  wife  and  children. 
He  advised  them  to  go  away  from  England  and  live 
elsewhere  under  an  assumed  name,  where  the  mem- 
ory of  his  disgrace  could  never  touch  them.  Then  his 
heart  broke,  and  he  died  in  prison  the  very  night 
before  the  verdict  would  have  been  given.  I  was  glad 
for  his  poor  wife's  sake  that  he  didn't  live  through 
it.  If  he  had  been  hanged  —  But  the  idea  is  too 
horrible  ! " 

"  He  had  children,  then  ?  " 

"  Yes,  two  children ;  a  boy  and  a  girl ;  the  boy  a 
fine,  handsome,  dark-haired,  intelligent  little  fellow, 
with  his  father's  eyes  —  the  very  image  of  Lichfield. 


12  A   TEUUIULE  INHERITANCE. 

They  went,  away,  and  I  never  heard  again  what 
became  of  them.  We  all  lived  at  Eritli  then ;  that 
was  before  I  went  into  the  army." 

There  was  a  pause  for  a  moment,  and  then  the 
General  spoke  again.  "  I've  often  wondered,"  he 
said,  "  what  became  of  those  poor  children." 

Harry  shuddered.  "  It  was  a  terrible  inheritance 
indeed  for  them,"  he  said.  *'  I  don't  know  whether 
my  profession  makes  me  think  too  much  of  hereditary 
transmission,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing ;  but  if  I  were 
born  with  a  curse  like  that  hanging  over  me,  I'd  give 
up  my  life  entirely  to  some  kind  of  work  that  would 
do  most  good  for  my  fellow-men,  and  expose  me  least 
of  all  to  any  possible  temptation.  And  I'd  never 
marry.  Apart  even  from  the  possibility  of  my  pass- 
ing on  to  my  children  the  inherited  taint  inherent 
in  their  blood — which  alone  would  terrify  me  — 
I'd  never  like  to  tliink  that  sons  and  daughters  of 
mine  were  born  with  the  hereditary  shame  of  murder 
behind  them." 

"  You're  quite  right,"  Sir  Arthur  said  with  prompt 
decision.  "  A  drunkard's  son  should  eschew  wine  ;  a 
gambler's  son  should  never  for  the  world  touch  cards 
or  dice ;  and  a  murderer's  son  should  feel  forever  the 
terrible  possibilities  of  crime  within  him.  But  then, 
it  isn't  likely  that  the  son  of  a  poisoner  would  be  born 
with  the  sort  of  a  moral  nature  which  would  urge  him 
to  lead  a  life  of  earnest  endeavor,  and  rather  to  con- 
quer his  own  inclinations  than  to  pass  on  a  taint  of 
blood  to  his  children's  children.  He'd  probably 
never  think  at  all  about  it." 

Harry  smiled.  "That's  true,"  he  answered.  "One 
can't  help  reading  one's  own  moral  ideas  into  the 
minds  of  others,  who  would  in  all  probability  be  very 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  13 

» 

differently  constituted  indeed.  Thank  Heaven  that 
we  come  of  a  better  stock,  and  that  temptations  are 
for  us,  I  hope,  less  present  and  less  urgent,  much  as 
we  all  need  always  to  guard  against  them."  ■. 

At  that  moment.  Bertha,  who  had  passed  out  of  the 
open  folding  windows  on  to  the  lawn  some  moments 
before,  crossed  on  the  front  of  the  lawn  in  the  August 
moonlight,  with  Tay  beside  her  frisky  as  ever.  Sir 
Arthur  rose,  lighted  a  cigar,  and  strolled  out  with 
his  guest  on  to  the  lawn.  Lady  Woolrych  rose  too, 
and  in  five  minutes  Harry  found  himself,  to  his 
immense  delight,  standing  beside  the  terrace  parapet 
alone  with  Bertha,  while  her  father  and  mother 
walked  up  and  down  some  distance  behind  them. 
The  moonbeams  danced  merrily  on  the  sea  below ; 
the  night  was  calm,  and  warm,  and  delicious.  Harry 
Prior  was  very  much  in  love.  Bertha  Woolrych  was 
very  beautiful.  Before  Harry  left  the  terrace  that 
evening  he  had  whispered  a  few  words,  which  need 
not  be  repeated,  in  Bertha's  ear ;  and  Bertha,  blushing 
and  looking  down,  had  answered  him  simply,  "  I  do, 
Mr.  Prior."  And  then  Harry  turned  and  went,  with 
his  heart  beating  and  his  face  flushed,  the  happiest 
and  proudest  man  that  moment  in  all  England. 

When  Bertha,  with  many  little  stammering  apolo- 
gies, told  her  story  that  night  to  her  mother  in  her 
own  room,  Lady  Woolrych  bent  over  and  kissed  her 
tenderly,  saying  with  a  sigh,  "  My  darling,  we  shall 
all  be  sorry  to  lose  you,  but  I  think  you've  chosen 
wisely  ;  I'm  sure  you've  chosen  wisely.  He's  a  good 
young  man  and  a  fine  fellow.  We  could  wish  for  no 
one  better  to  marry  you,  Bertha." 

But  when  Lady  Woolrych,  wiping  her  eyes,  went 
in  five  minutes  later,  to  tell  her  husband,  with  many 


14  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

praises  of  Harry's  manliness  and  sterling  good  quali- 
ties, Sir  Arthur  answered  somewhat  uneasily,  "  He's 
a  very  nice  young  man  certainly,  and  seems  to  be  full 
of  high  principles  and  fine  enthusiasm,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing  ;  and  they  tell  me  he's  sure  to  get  on  in 
his  profession  also.  Sir  Benjamin  Wroxall  says  he's 
the  ablest  student  he  ever  had,  and  he'll  one  day  be 
president  of  the  College  of  Physicians.  But  there's 
something  in  his  face  I  don't  quite  like  —  something 
in  his  face  that  somehow  frightens  me." 

"  Frightens  you,  my  dear  ! "  Lady  Woolrych  inter- 
posed. "Why,  I  think  he's  got  the  kindest  and  hand- 
somest face  I  ever  saw,  except  yours,  Arthur." 

Sir  Arthur  hesitated.  "  Oh  yes,  handsome  enough," 
he  said,  "and  kind,  I  grant  you;  but  there's  some- 
thing in  him  that  reminds  me  strangely  of  somebody 
—  well,  there,  never  mind  about  it  now,  if  you  please, 
Amelia.  The  other  face  was  kind  and  handsome  too, 
I  remember." 

For  a  moment  there  was  silence.  Then  Sir  Arthur, 
fingering  his  eyeglass  nervously,  said  with  a  little 
start,  "  I  wish  he  didn't  take  such  an  interest  in 
poisons.  I  don't  like  these  men  who  go  in  for  poison- 
ing ;  it  isn't  at  all  a  pleasant  subject." 

"But  my  dear,"  Lady  Woolrych  objected  gently, 
"  somebody  must  know  all  about  poisons,  of  course,  or 
what  should  we  do  to  get  cured  when  we  took  them 
by  accident  ?  Look  at  the  good  he  Avas  able  to  do  to 
poor  little  Tay  this  very  day,  now.  Bertha  would 
have  cried  her  dear  eyes  out  if  she'd  really  lost 
him." 

"I  know,  I  know,"  Sir  Arthur  answered  testily. 
"But  I  don't  like  poisons.  I'm  prejudiced  against 
poisons.     I  have  my  reasons.     I  like  the  I  young  man, 


'     A    TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  15 

and  I  see  that  he's  really  very  fond  of  Bertha ;  but  I 
wish  he  didn't  go  in  for  poisons.  It's  a  horrid  sub- 
ject, a  ghastly  subject,  and  I  can't  and  won't  pretend 
I  like  it.'' 


III. 

Sir  Arthur's  prejudices  were  not  invincible,  and 
Harry  Prior's  gentleness  and  goodness  of  heart  soon 
overcame  them.  Melbury  Regis  had  never  before 
had  so  popular  a  doctor.  Everybody  liked  him,  the 
poor  especially ;  for  Harry  was  always  ready  to  take 
as  much  pains  and  trouble  Avith  his  poorest  patient  as 
with  the  great  folk  at  the  Hall  or  Sir  Arthur's  family. 
Lady  Woolrych,  too,  was  very  fond  of  him,  and  ready 
to  welcome  him  as  Bertha's  husband.  As  for  Bertha 
herself,  her  admiration  for  Harry  was  quite  un- 
bounded ;  she  thought  him  the  cleverest,  wisest,  kind- 
est, and  dearest  man  that  ever  existed ;  and,  making 
due  allowance  for  the  natural  error  of  perspective 
common  to  the  condition  of  falling  in  love,  she  was 
not,  perhaps,  so  very  much  mistaken  in  her  innocent 
reckoning. 

The  wedding,  it  was  arranged,  was  to  come  off 
shortly.  Harry  had  private  means  besides  his  prac- 
tice, and  there  was  no  need,  therefore,  for  a  long  en- 
gagement. But  before  the  wedding,  it  was  Harry's 
desire  that  his  mother  and  sister  should  come  to  live 
at  Melbury.  He  had  not  seen  them  for  some  three  or 
four  years  ;  for  Mrs.  Prior  had  lived  the  greater  part 
of  her  life  in  Canada,  and  Harry  had  been  unable  to 
visit  them  since  leaving  Oxford  and  taking  seriously 
to  his  profession  as  a  doctor.     For  some  incomprehen- 


16  A   TEIiRriiLE  INUEIilTANCE. 

sible  reason,  however,  Mrs.  Prior  seemed  very  unwill- 
ing to  change  her  residence.  Hurry  wrote  to  her 
eagerly  by  post  after  post,  begging  her  not  to  disap- 
point him  in  this  matter;  but  his  mother,  who  was 
always  of  a  timid  shrinking  natuie,  seemed  anxious 
not  to  face  the  stormy  Atlantic  in  her  old  age,  or  to 
ex})ose  herself  needlessly  to  a  change  of  climate. 

"  You  see,  Bertha,"  he  said,  "  my  dear  mother  has 
lived  in  Canada  now  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and 
1  suppose  she  doesn't  like  to  tear  herself  up  by  the 
roots,  as  it  Avere,  and  come  home  again  to  settle  in 
England ;  but  as  I  can't  possibly  go  out  there,  and  as 
I  long  to  have  her  living  near  us,  I  have  begged  and 
implored  her,  for  my  own  sake  and  my  sister's,  to 
come  to  ^Melbury." 

''  She's  a  dear  gentle-looking  old  lady,"  Bertha  said, 
glancing  at  the  photograph  that  Harry  handed  her. 
"  I'm  sure  I  should  love  her,  Harry,  and  I'm  sure  I 
should  like  her  to  be  living  near  us.  You're  very  like 
her  too,  though  you're  dark  and  she's  fair :  you  have 
her  mouth  and  her  forehead  exactly." 

"  Yes,"  Harry  answered ;  "  but  my  eyes  and  my 
profile,  they  say,  are  my  father's.  I  can't  remember 
him ;  he  died  Avhen  I  was  only  a  very  little  fellow, 
before  my  mother  went  to  live  in  Canada.  But  my 
mother  retains  the  most  profound  affection  for  him, 
though  she  can  hardly  ever  be  induced  to  speak  of 
him  to  this  day." 

"  But  why  did  your  mother  go  out  to  Canada  T" 
Bertha  asked. 

"  I  hardly  know.  She  said  she  could  never  bear  her 
loneliness  in  England  after  my  father's  death.  She 
went  away  and  buried  herself  in  a  little  village  in 
Canada,  where  she  lived  very  quietly,  though  she's 


A   TEUUIULE  INHERITANCE,  17 

well  off,  and  brought  me  up  at  a  small  school  in  the 
neighborhood.  Indeed,  she  seems  to  have  a  sort  of 
horror  of  England.  AVhen  T  was  getting  to  be  a  big 
boy,  I  felt  such  a  desire  to  come  home  to  school,  and 
fit  myself  for  a  })rofpssion  in  a  way  that  I  eouhln't 
have  been  fitted  in  Canada,  that  I  begged  her  to  bring 
me  home  to  England,  and  let  me  go  to  Rugby  or 
some  other  good  jdace.  l^ut  she  wouldn't  hear  of  it. 
After  much  solicitation  she  let  me  come  by  myself, 
but  nothing  on  earth  would  induce  her  then  to  accom- 
pany me." 

"How  very  odd,"  Bertha  said.  "Perhaps,  Harry, 
she  had  some  painful  associations  you  don't  know  of 
in  England." 

"  I  think  not ;  except,  indeed,  my  father's  death. 
That  seems  to  have  left  a  profound  and  lasting  im- 
pression upon  her ;  she's  always  of  a  most  clinging, 
affectionate  nature.  But  though  she's  one  of  the 
most  reasonable  and  sweet-dispositioned  women  I 
know,  she's  sometimes  moved  by  strong  feelings  which 
seem  to  me  almost  unaccountable.  Why,  I  wanted  to 
go  to  Cambridge,  for  example,  because  the  medical 
schools  there  are  said  to  be  better  than  at  Oxford; 
but  my  mother  so  begged  and  prayed  me  to  change 
my  plan  that  I  gave  way,  sorely  against  my  better 
judgment.  She  seemed  somehow  to  have  an  almost 
superstitious  terror  of  Cambridge." 

"  Perhaps  your  father  was  an  Oxford  man,"  Bertha 
suggested,  "and  she  wanted  you  therefore  to  follow 
in  his  footsteps." 

"  Why,  that's  just  the  very  oddest  part  of  it,"  Harry 
responded  briskly.  "My  father  was  a  Cambridge 
man,  and  as  far  as  I  can  make  out  (though  it  always 
saddens  her  for  me  to  ask  her  about  it),  a  doctor  too, 


18  A    TEltUlBLE  INllElUrANCE. 

into  tlie  biirgain.  Yet  when  I  wrote  to  her  that  I 
was  goinjjf  to  take  up  medicine  myself,  she  wrote  me 
back  a  letter  that  was  little  less  than  imploring,  and 
Legged  me  to  choose  any  other  profession  rather  than 
that  one.  I  went  out  to  Canada  the  next  vacation  on 
purpose,  and  had  great  difficulty  in  talking  her  over. 
But  1  couldn't  forego  that.  I  felt  it  was  my  natural 
calling  in  life,  and  the  work  at  which  I  could  do  most 
good  in  the  Avorld  for  other  people.  It's  a  splendid 
profession,  a  noble  profession,  to  alleviate  pain  and 
lessen  the  sum  of  human  suffering ;  and  I  was  so  cer- 
tain that  I  had  a  distinct  call  towards  it  that  I  went 
out  with  no  other  object  except  to  alter  my  mother's 
determination.  And  I  did  alter  it.  AVhen  she  saw 
my  enthusiasm,  and  the  spirit  in  which  I  regarded 
my  work,  she  said  herself  she  felt  it  was  a  serious 
matter,  and  it  would  be  no  longer  right  for  her  to 
oppose  me.  She  saw  I  regarded  medicine  as  a  mis- 
sion, and  she  gave  way,  as  she  always  does  when  she 
feels  it's  a  matter  of  conscience,  not  one  of  mere  per- 
sonal predilection." 

"And  you've  persuaded  her  at  last  to  come  to  Mel- 
bury  ?  "  Bertha  said. 

"  Yes,  I've  persuaded  her  at  last,  I'm  happy  to  say, 
and  she  sails  in  the  Vancouver  from  Quebec  next 
Thursday.  We  may  expect  her  here  in  about  a  fort- 
night." 

"  Dear  old  lady,"  Bertha  said,  looking  hard  at  the 
photograph.  "  I'm  sure  I  shall  love  her  if  she  takes 
after  you,  Harry." 

"She  takes  before  me  wonderfully,  if  that's  what 
you  mean,"  Harry  answered  with  a  laugh.  "  We're  as 
like  as  two  peas,  not  only  in  face,  but  in  mind  and 
character.     I  fancy  most   parents  take   before  their 


A   TERRIhLE  INHERITANCE.  19 

children,  and  their  children  in  turn  take  after  them 
exactly.  Like  father,  like  son.  We  may  modify  our 
own  characters  greatly  for  good  or  for  evil,  no  doubt } 
but  in  the  beginning  we  owe  them  chiefly  to  our 
fathers  and  mothers.  What  dreadfully  philosophical 
conversation,  though,  for  you  and  me,  Bertha,  and 
only  ten  minutes  more  to  see  one  another  in." 

I  omit  the  remainder  of  that  evening's  interview, 
as  not  necessarily  intended  for  publication,  but  given 
merely  as  a  guaranty  of  good  faith. 


IV. 

In  the  fortnight  that  elapsed  before  his  mother's 
arrival,  Harry  Prior  was  extremely  busy.  A  young 
man  during  his  engagement  is  usually  busy;  but 
Harry  Prior  was  more  than  ordinarily  so.  He  had 
his  patients  to  see,  he  had  Bertha  to  visit,  and  he  had 
a  full  account  of  his  great  discovery  of  an  antidote  to 
curari  to  draw  up  and  present  to  the  Royal  Society. 
His  researches  into  the  nature  of  that  terrible  drug 
accidentally  led  him  in  the  mean  time  to  examine  Dr. 
Lichfield's  papers  preserved  in  the  library  of  the 
College  of  Physicians.  For  this  purpose  he  had  twice 
run  up  for  the  afternoon  to  London  —  Melbury,  as 
everybody  knows,  is  only  an  hour  by  express  from 
Victoria — and  in  those  mysterious  archives  he  had 
consulted  the  original  manuscript  documents  of  the 
Erith  case  in  the  famous  poisoner's  own  handwriting. 
Dr.  Lichfield,  all  the  world  will  remember,  had  been 
specially  interested  in  the  effects  of  curari,  and  had 
made  several  observations  upon  the   nature  of  the 


20  A    TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

drug,  in  the  hope  of  discovering  a  practicable  mode 
of  treatment.  It  was  liis  intimate  knowledge  of  its 
working,  the  world  said,  which  led  him  to  prepare 
that  fatal  ointment  that  he  applied  with  his  own 
hands  to  the  open  wound  on  his  uncle's  body. 
Colonel  Lichfield,  the  uncle,  had  fallen  from  his  horse 
while  hunting,  and  given  himself  a  serious  cut  on  the 
forehead.  His  nephew,  as  everybody  believed,  aware 
of  the  will  lately  drawn  in  his  favor,  had  put  curari 
in  the  ointment  for  dressing  it,  and  then  endeavored 
to  ascribe  the  fatal  effect  to  ordinary  tetanus  super- 
vening on  the  accident.  The  reading  of  Dr.  Lich- 
field's papers  convinced  Harry  not  only  that  the 
doctor  knew  a  great  deal  about  curari,  but  also  that 
he  was  the  only  man  in  England  at  the  time  likely 
to  have  any  of  that  rare  drug  in  his  possession.  The 
only  other  person  to  whom  suspicion  could  possibly 
have  attached  was  a  neighbor  at  Erith,  a  young  Mr. 
Flamstead,  who  had  frequent  access  to  Dr.  Lichfield's 
surgery.  Such  was  the  terrible  story  which  Harry 
spelt  out  for  himself,  piecemeal,  those  two  afternoons 
in  the  library  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians. 

At  the  end  of  the  fortnight  IVIrs.  Prior  arrived,  and 
Harry,  warned  of  her  approach  by  telegram  from 
Liverpool,  went  up  to  Euston  to  meet  her  on  her 
arrival.  The  moment  he  saw  her,  he  was  struck  with 
surprise  at  the  striking  change  which  seemed  recently 
to  have  come  over  his  mother's  manner.  Mrs.  Prior 
appeared  to  be  half  frightened  of  everybody  she  saw, 
and  to  shrink  within  herself  whenever  anybody  hap- 
pened to  draw  near  and  gaze  at  her  closely.  She  had 
always  been  timid,  but  her  timidity  now  was  simply 
painful.  Still,  he  set  it  down  to  the  novelty  of  the 
situation  —  her  want  of  familiarity  with  crowded  Lon- 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  21 

don  railway-stations,  and  took  her  with  his  sister  to  a 
cab  as  quickly  as  possible,  so  as  to  compose  and  quiet 
her  evident  nervousness. 

When  once  Mrs.  Prior  was  settled  down  at  Mel- 
bury,  however,  in  Harry's  pretty  little  rose-covered 
cottage,  she  soon  began  to  recover  a  little  from  this 
strange  shrinking  from  the  eyes  of  strangers.  Harry's 
intention  was  to  give  up  his  present  house  on  his 
marriage  to  his  mother  and  sister,  and  take  a  new 
and  larger  one  for  himself  and  Bertha  at  the  end  of 
the  village,  by  the  groins  and  breakwater.  The 
cottage  would  just  suit  jNIrs.  Prior,  and  she  was 
pleased  at  all  the  little  preparations  Harry  ]iad  made 
beforehand  for  her  comfort.  It  was  so  strange  to  be 
back  in  England  again,  she  said  more  than  once ; 
twenty-five  years  ago  since  she  left !  Everybody 
would  be  greatly  altered  in  twenty-five  years  !  And 
besides,  there  were  so  few  left  alive  now  that  she  had 
known  of  old.  Harry  and  his  sister  noticed  with 
surprise  that  this  remark,  made  again  and  again, 
seemed  somehow  to  afford  their  mother  consolation 
rather  than  sorrow ;  she  seemed  glad  to  think  there 
were  not  many  remaining  who  had  been  familiar  with 
her  in  her  early  womanhood. 

In  unpacking  her  boxes,  Harry  came  across  two 
objects  that  rather  interested  him  as  family  relics. 
One  was  an  old-fashioned  portrait  of  a  gentleman  —  a 
handsome  dark  man,  with  noteworthy  eyes  —  painted 
on  ivory,  and  set  as  a  miniature  in  a  gold  locket. 
The  locket  bore  outside  the  initials  W.  L.  He  looked 
at  it  twice.  Who  could  that  be,  then  ?  W.  L. !  Not 
his  father,  anyhow.  His  father's  Initials  were  W.  P., 
Walter  Prior.  His  mother  always  spoke  of  him  as 
Walter.     A  grandfather,  perhaps,  or  other  relation! 


22  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

The  second  object  was  a  small  Churcli  Service.  On 
the  blank  page  ran  a  short  inscription,  "  For  dearest 
Emily,  with  love  from  Walter."  It  was  his  father's 
writing,  then  —  the  first  time  he  had  ever  seen  it. 
Yet  someliow,  the  hand  seemed  strangely  familiar  to 
him :  he  had  surely  met  with  it  somewhere  before, 
when  or  Avhere  he  could  not  remember.  He  scanned 
it  long,  but  failed  to  recollect,  yet  he  carried  it  away 
in  his  mind's  eye  afterward. 

How  odd  that  he  had  heard  so  little  about  his 
father !  How  odd  that  nc  should  not  have  known 
even  the  look  of  his  neat  handwriting  !  How  odd 
that  his  mother  should  always  be  so  reticent !  Well, 
well ;  now  that  she  had  come  to  live  in  England,  per- 
haps old  memories  would  be  revived  within  her,  and 
she  Avould  become  a  little  more  communicative  in 
future.  He  hoped  so  most  fervently  ;  for  a  man  who 
believed  in  hereditary  transmission  of  qualities  as  he 
did  would  naturally  like  to  learn  as  much  as  possible 
about  the  life  and  character  of  his  own  father. 

Next  day,  Lady  Woolrych  and  Bertha  came  to  call 
upon  Mrs.  Prior,  and  both  were  charmed  with  her 
sweet  manner  and  gentle  old-fashioned  motherly 
w^ays.  Mrs.  Prior,  too,  was  delighted  with  Bertha, 
and  Harry  was  indeed  pleased  and  satisfied  w^ith  their 
mutual  liking.  Sir  Arthur,  as  it  happened,  did  not 
come  :  he  was  up  in  town  that  day  on  business  at  the 
War  Office ;  but  Lady  Woolrych  begged  them  to  waive 
ceremony,  and  take  tea  at  The  Lawn  next  afternoon. 

At  five  o'clock,  therefore,  they  walked  up  to  The 
Lawn,  Mrs.  Prior  a  trifle  tremulous  as  before,  but 
much  re -assured  by  Harry's  arm  and  liis  ever-watchful 
and  tender  sympathy.  Bertha  and  her  mother  met 
them  at  the  door,  and  brought  them  in  at  once  to  the 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  23 

big  drawing-room.  "Oh,  Harry,"  Bertha  cried,  as 
soon  as  they  sat  down,  "  have  you  heard  the  news  ? 
Papa's  just  brought  it  down  from  town.  He  met  Sir 
Benjamin  a,ccidentpriy  to-day  in  the  Strand,  and  Sir 
Benjamin  told  him  the  College  of  Physicians  had  that 
very  moment  risen  from  voting  you  their  gold  medal 
for  your  great  discovery  !  " 

Harry  smiled  and  flushed  with  pleasure,  and  his 
sister  Edith,  looking  at  him  with  sisterly  pride,  asked 
at  once,  "  AVhat  discovery,  ]Miss  Woolrych  ?  We 
haven't  heard  of  it !  This  is  something  Harry  hasn't 
yet  told  us  of." 

"  Not  '  Miss  Woolrych,'  "  Bertha  said,  "  if  you 
please,  dear.  We're  to  be  sisters  so  soon.  Do  call 
me  '  Bertha.'  But  don't  you  know  what  it  all  is  ? 
Harry's  wonderful  discovery  of  the  new  antidote  — 
the  thing  he  cured  my  poor  Tay  with." 

"Antidote!''  Mrs.  Prior  cried  with  that  same  half- 
terrified  look  Harry  had  noticed  on  her  face  so  often 
before;  "antidote  to  what?  Oh,  Bertha,  Bertha,  for 
Heaven's  sake,  don't  talk  about  antidotes." 

"But,  mother,"  Harry  interposed,  laying  his  hand 
gently  on  her  arm,  "  this  is  a  splendid  thing,  a  perfect 
talisman  —  a  marvellous  cure  for  a  poison  that  has 
always  hitherto  been  considered  helpless  and  hopeless 
—  calculated  to  do  an  immensity  of  good  :  it  counter- 
acts all  the  evil  effects  of  curari." 

At  the  word  Mrs.  Prior  grew  deadly  pale  and 
gasped  inarticulately.  "Curari,"  she  repeated  in  a 
dreamy  terror  after  a  moment  to  herself.  "  Curari ! 
Curari !  Oh,  Harry,  don't  speak  of  it !  Don't  men- 
tion it !  Don't  even  think  of  it !  I  didn't  know  you 
knew  anything  about  those  dreadful  poisons." 

"  Didn't  know  he  knew  anything  about  poisons  !  " 


24  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

Bertha  cried  in  surprise.  "  Why,  clear  Mrs.  Prior,  he 
knows  more  about  them,  everybody  says,  than  any- 
body else  in  all  Enghind.  It's  his  great  specialty,  his 
peculiar  department ;  and  the  College  of  Physicians 
has  just  to-day  awarded  him  the  gold  medal  for  know- 
ing everything  on  earth  about  them." 

"  Hush,"  Edith  Prior  whispered  softly  in  her  ear. 
"Please  don't  talk  any  more  upon  the  subject.  Dear 
mother  can  never  bear  to  hear  about  poisons.  It's  one 
of  her  strange  little  nervous  weaknesses  — she  has  so 
many  of  them.  Her  nerves  were  very  much  shattered 
in  her  youth,  and  it  comes  out  in  all  sorts  of  extraor- 
dinary ideas  that  Harry  and  I  understand  and  make 
allowances  for." 

At  that  moment  tea  came  in,  and  Lady  Woolrych 
poured  out  a  cup  at  once  for  Mrs.  Prior.  The  old 
lady  hardly  tasted  it,  though  she  tried  her  best  to  re- 
cover her  composure ;  but  it  was  clear  she  was  upset 
and  ill  at  ease ;  the  affair  of  the  medal  had  evidently 
for  the  moment  deprived  her  altogether  of  her  cus- 
tomary spirits. 

Next  minute  the  drawing-room  door  opened  once 
more,  and  Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  entered  by  himself  to 
greet  his  daughter's  future  relations. 

He  advanced  towards  them,  tall,  thin,  and  erect, 
with  his  military  bearing  and  his  gray  mustache,  the 
very  picture  of  the  old  English  cavalry  officer.  Lady 
Woolrych  introduced  him  with  a  wave  of  her  hand. 
"  Mrs.  Prior,  Miss  Prior  —  my  husband !  Arthur, 
these  are  Harry's  mother  and  sister !  " 

"I'm  sure  I'm  delighted,  Mrs.  Prior, '  Sir  Arthur 
began  with  his  courtly  bow,  taking  her  hand  with 
friendly  solicitude,  "to  have  the  opportunity"  — 
Then  he  stopped  short,  suddenly,  as  if  utterance  failed 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  25 

him,  and  looked  at  her  with  a  strange  half-frightened 
look,  not  unlike  her  own,  though  haughtier  and 
prouder.  "  Curious,"  he  murmured,  "  very  curious. 
It  must  be  so  !     I  can't  have  forgotten  her !  " 

Mrs.  Prior's  hand  and  lips  trembled  violently.  "Is 
this  —  Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  ? "  she  asked,  at  last, 
with  a  terrible  effort. 

"It  is  now,"  Sir  Arthur  answered,  looking  her 
keenly  in  the  face  for  a  moment  with  his  piercing 
glance.  "  But  when  we  last  met,  if  you  recollect,  I 
was  Arthur  Flamstead.     You  must  remember  me  ! " 

"Sir  Arthur's  family  name  was  originally  Flam- 
stead,  you  know,"  Lady  Woolrych  put  m  quietly,  by 
way  of  explanation.  "  He  assumed  the  name  of 
Woolrych  instead,  by  royal  warrant,  on  the  death  of 
a  distant  cousin  on  his  mother's  side,  from  whom 
he  inherited  a  certain  amount  of  property.  Perhaps 
you've  seen  one  another  before,  Mrs.  Prior." 

But  Mrs.  Prior,  who  had  risen  terrified  from  her 
chair  at  the  first  recognition,  answered  never  a  word 
for  good  or  evil.  She  stood  there,  white,  cold,  and 
rooted  to  the  ground,  like  a  living  statue,  muttering 
only  in  an  agonized  voice  to  herself.  "  Arthur  Flam- 
stead!  Arthur  Flamstead !  To  think  that  Harry 
should  have  brought  me  straight  into  the  very  pres- 
ence of  Arthur  Flamstead  !  " 

In  a  single  flash  the  horrible  truth  bore  itself  in  at 
once  upon  Harry's  brain.  Arthur  Flamstead !  He 
knew  now  where  he  had  seen  that  unfamiliar  name 
before.  It  was  the  name  of  the  person  so  intimate 
with  the  Lichfield  family  at  the  time  of  the  great 
Erith  poisoning  case. 

Next  moment,  in  another  vivid  flash  of  recognition, 
he  remembered  also  where  he  had  seen  the  writing  of 


26  A   rERRIJiLE  INHEIilTANCE. 

which  the  inscription  in  his  mother's  prayer-book  had 
dimly  reminded  him.  He  recaUed  it  now  and  iden- 
tified it  with  horriUe  distinctness,  l^oth  specimens 
of  the  liand  rose  up  with  startling  clearness  before 
liis  mind's  eye.  It  was  the  very  hand  of  Lichfield 
the  poisoner,  as  seen  in  the  manuscripts  at  the  Col- 
lege of  Physicians ! 

Yes,  yes  !  there  was  no  evading  the  truth !  Ter- 
rible, incredible,  crushing  as  it  was,  he  knew  in  a 
second  he  was  Lichfield's  son!  Lichfield  the  poi- 
soner Lichfield  tin;  murderer. 

Unmanned  by  the  event,  Harry  sank  back  speech- 
less in  a  chair  close  by.  His  mother  sank  back 
equally  in  hers.  Edith  Trior,  unable  to  comprehend 
the  meaning  of  the  scene,  but  pale  and  perturbed, 
looked  on  and  wrung  her  hands  in  helpless  misery. 
Sir  Arthur  alone  retained  his  composure.  He  rang 
the  bell,  and  said  in  a  low  quiet  tone  to  the  servant, 
'<  Send  round  the  brougham  as  fast  as  Wilson  can 
get  it  ready.  Mrs.  Prior  is  ill.  She  can't  remain 
here." 

It  seemed  like  dismissal,  yet  it  was  the  kindest 
thing  to  do  under  such  appalling  circumstances.  In  a 
few  minutes  more  the  brougham  came  round,  and 
without  another  word  Harry  put  his  mother  and 
sister  into  it,  and  they  all  three  drove  off  alone  to- 
gether, silent  and  horror-struck,  to  their  own  cottage. 

On  the  way  back  nobody  spoke  a  single  wordl^ 
aloud.  Only  once,  Mrs.  Prior  opened  her  lips. 
"  Harry,"  she  murmured,  in  a  scarcely  audible  voice, 
*'he  didn't  do  it.  He  never  did  it.  I  know  in  my 
heart  he  could  never  have  done  it." 


A    TEIUtlBLE  INHERITANCE.  27 


V. 

"Fattier,"  Bertha  critnl,  in  a  tone  of  entreaty,  as 
soon  as  they  were  gone,  "  what  does  it  all  mean  ? 
What  do  you  know  about  them  ?  Why  on  earth 
were  Harry  and  his  mother  so  terrified  at  learning 
that  you  were  onee  Arthur  Flamstead  ?  " 

Sir  Arthur  walked  up  and  down  the  room  with 
nervous  anxiety.  He  thrust  his  hands  deep  into  his 
l>ookets,  h(dd  his  head  downward  towards  the  carpet, 
and  looked  the  very  j)icture  of  abject  misery. 
"Bertha,"  he  answered  at  last,  after  a  long  pause, 
"  don't  ask  me  !  I  won't  tell  you.  I  can't  tell  you. 
I  sliall  never  tell  you.  It's  better  for  you  that  you 
should  never  know.  But  my  child,  my  child,  I  can- 
not now  let  you  marry  Harry  Prior." 

"Papa!" 

It  was  an  agonized  cry,  a  cry  of  unutterable  grief 
and  terror.  Her  father  rushed  up  and  caught  her  in 
his  arms.  Bertha  looked  at  him  with  glazed  eyes. 
For  a  moment  he  almost  thought  he  had  killed  her ; 
he  lifted  her  up  like  a  child,  with  more  strength  than 
he  fancied  he  still  j)0ssessed,  and  carried  her  up  in  his 
trembling  arms  to  her  own  bedroom.  There  he  laid 
her  down  gently  on  the  sofa,  and  stood  beside  her, 
watching  her  long  and  tenderly,  while  her  mother 
and  the  maid  bathed  her  forehead ;  but  not  another 
word  of  explanation  would  he  say  to  either  of  them. 
"No,  no,  Amelia,"  he  cried  eagerly,  when  his  wife 
pressed  him.  "It's  too  terrible,  too  harrowing.  It 
recalls  the  most  awful  memory  of  my  life.  I  can't 
talk  about  it.     Impossible  !     Impossible." 

The  night  that  followed  was  an  awful  one  for  all  of 
them. 


28  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

Tlirough  that  long  sleepless  night  Sir  Arthur  had 
but  one  thought  in  his  torn  bosom,  —  "Perhaps  Harry 
Prior  will  come  to-morrow  to  release  her  from  her 
engagement  of  his  own  accord,  and  so  save  me  the 
pain  and  horror  of  breaking  it." 

Tlirough  that  long  sleepless  night  Harry  Prior  lay 
tossing  and  turning,  a  prey  to  terrible  alternate  fears 
and  suspicions,  trying  to  school  himself  to  this 
ghastly  reality.  He  was  Lichtield's  son ;  that  much 
was  certain;  the  son  of  the  man  he  had  always 
thought  of  as  "  Lichfield  the  murderer."  The  son  of 
the  man  whom  everybody  remembered  as  the  very  em- 
bodiment of  cool,  deliberate,  cold-blooded  treachery. 
The  son  of  the  man  who  had  cruelly  poisoned  the 
uncle  who  had  always  been  to  him  like  a  father  — 
poisoned  him  with  a  painful  and  horrible  drug,  with 
whose  hideous  effects  he  was  better  acquainted  than 
anybody  else  in  all  England.  Harry  shrank  appalled 
from  so  unutterable  a  thought.  The  father  whom  he 
had  long  pictured  to  himself  in  imagination  as  so 
good  and  true  and  kind  and  noble-hearted,  faded  away 
at  once  into  absolute  nothingness  ;  and  he  knew  him 
now  for  just  what  he  was  —  Lichfield  the  poisoner ! 
Lichfield  the  murderer ! 

To  any  man  on  earth  the  shock  would  have  been 
terrific ;  to  Harry  Prior,  with  his  generous  enthusiasm, 
his  high  aspirations,  his  eager  desire  to  do  good  work 
in  the  world  for  suffering  humanity  —  to  Harry  Prior,  - 
with  his  profound  belief,  right  or  wrong,  in  hereditary 
characteristics  —  it  was  nothing   less  than  crushing  . 
and   annihilating.     He   almost  felt  himself  in  some 
sense  a  murderer  too.     Knowing  that  the  sins  of  the 
fathers  are  visited  upon  the  children  to  the  third  and  • 
fourth  generation,  he  recognized,  as  it  were,  his  own 


A   TEliRIliLE  INHERITANCE.  29 

potential  responsi])ility  for  the  sins  which  had  been 
passed  on  inherent  in  his  own  liesli  and  blood  and 
mind  and  temperament.  How  he  hated  himself  now 
for  his  interest  in  poisons  —  paltering  and  playing, 
as  he  fancied,  with  the  means  of  crime  !  How  he 
shrank  appalled  even  from  his  own  noble  profession 
—  tliat  profession  which  he  had  hitherto  always  re- 
garded with  such  love  and  pride  and  filial  affection  — 
seeing  in  it  under  these  altered  circumstances  nothing 
but  hideous  opportunities  and  temptations  for  the 
mo?t  awful  wrong.  It  was  indeed  a  painful  awaken- 
ing ;  may  all  of  us  escape  so  unspeakable  a  trial ! 

He  saw  it  all  distinctly  now  !  his  father's  death  ;  his 
mother  flying  horror-stricken  to  Canada,  and  hiding 
herself  under  an  assumed  name  in  a  remote  village ; 
her  alarm  at  strangers ;  her  disinclination  to  let  him 
attend  his  father's  university  ;  her  dislike  of  medicine 
as  his  choice  in  life,  with  all  its  hereditary  pitfalls 
and  tendencies ;  her  shrinking  from  the  very  name  of 
poison ;  her  anxiety  never  more  to  be  recognized  by 
those  who  had  known  her  in  her  former  existence. 
Yes,  yes,  he  felt  himself  in  very  truth  the  inheritor 
of  a  terrible  and  appalling  crime.  He  dared  not  face 
it !    He  dared  not  face  it ! 

And  then  at  other  times  the  thought  came  over  him, 
.Ought  he  to  condemn  any  man  unheard  ?  Above  all, 
ought  he  so  to  condemn  and  judge  his  own  father  ? 
Was  he  guilty  ?  Could  he  have  been  guilty  ?  The 
case  had  never  been  fully  tried  out.  Lichfield  the 
murderer  —  Oh  !  ghastly  thought !  He  could  not  think 
of  him  even  in  his  owai  mind  as  his  father  at  all,  but 
only  by  that  cruelly  familiar  question-begging  title  — 
Lichfield  the  murderer  had  died  half  tried  in  prison, 
and  judgment  had  gone  against  him  by  default  at  the 


30  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

unjust  tribunal  of  public  opinion.  But  was  it  right? 
Was  it  true  ?  Was  it  conceivable  ?  His  mother's 
words  came  back  to  him  at  once,  "  Harry,  Harry,  he 
never  did  it."  He  remembered  the  declaration  of 
Sergeant  Thorowgood,  Lichfield's  counsel — he  could 
not  yet  think  of  him  as  his  father  —  "  On  my  soul 
and  honor,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  believe  the  pris- 
oner at  the  bar  to  be  as  innocent  as  a  babe  of  the 
crime  imputed  to  him."  It  was  a  strange  and  unusual 
proceeding  on  the  part  of  a  barrister  ;  it  had  been  re- 
marked upon  as  irregular — a  piece  of  Thorowgood's 
well-known  rhetorical  Irish  extravagance  :  was  it  not 
possible  that  it  might  be  really  the  impr^ssioned  ex- 
pression of  a  genuine  opinion,  wrung  from  an  advo- 
cate in  the  heat  of  his  advocacy  by  the  strength  of 
his  conviction  of  his  client's  innocence,  coupled  with 
his  consciousness  of  the  futility  of  the  evidence  in  his 
favor  ?  Harry  himself,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  world, 
had  immediately  judged  the  case  on  the  written  evi- 
dence against  his  father.  Now  that  he  knew  he  was 
Lichfield's  son,  was  it  not  his  plain  duty,  for  his  own 
sake,  for  his  mother's  sake,  for  Edith's  sake,  for  the 
sake  even  of  his  father's  memory,  to  clear  up  the  mys- 
tery, if  mystery  there  were,  and  to  prove,  if  possible, 
Lichfield's  innocence  ? 

One  thing,  however,  was  quite  certain.  As  things 
now  stood  it  was  his  plain  duty,  too,  to  release  Bertha 
from  the  promise  that  bound  her.  Either  way,  that 
duty  must  be  honorably  faced.  If  he  was  really  a 
murderer's  son,  he  would  never  do  aught  to  hand 
down  to  others  the  shadow  of  the  curse  that  devolved 
upon  himself.  Even  if  he  were  not,  he  must  first 
prove  the  fact  satisfactorily  to  himself,  and  then  to 
the  world,  before   he  could  ask  his  pure,  beautiful. 


A   TElilUBLE  INUERITANCE.  31 

stainless  Bertha  to  share  with  liim  the  heritage  of 
that  wrongly  dishonored  name.  It  was  an  awful  al- 
ternative, but  he  must  face  it  like  a  man.  The  very 
next  day  he  must  see  Bertha  and  break  off  his  en- 
gagement, at  least  for  the  present. 

As  for  Bertha,  she  too  lay  awake  all  night  with 
formless  surmises  floating  through  her  brain,  not 
knowing  what  to  think  or  believe,  but  conscious  only 
of  some  vague  spectre  which  had  suddenly  risen  up 
between  her  and  Harry.  "Whatever  it  was,  her  faith 
in  him  bore  her  safely  through ;  but  she  feared  the 
worst  for  the  future,  and  she  could  not  sleep  in  her 
tearless  misery. 

After  breakfast  next  morning,  Harry  came  round 
and  presented  himself  betimes  at  The  Lawn.  He  was 
not  in  a  fit  state  to  visit  his  patients  that  day,  but  he 
could  not  neglect  them,  so  he  had  telegraphed  up  to 
town  in  haste  to  his  old  hospital  for  an  efficient  sub- 
stitute, and  having  obtained  one  down  by  the  first 
train,  he  gave  himself  a  sad  and  tortured  holiday. 
Sir  Arthur  met  him  in  the  vestibule  and  motioned 
him  silently  into  his  own  study.  For  a  minute  both 
men  stood  confronting  one  another  in  terrible  silence. 
Then  Sir  Arthur  spoke  in  a  low  tone.  "You  have 
come  ?  "  he  said  interrogatively. 

"I  have  come,"  Harry  answered  in  a  firm  but 
quivering  voice,  interrupting  him  boldly,  "  to  release 
Miss  Woolrych  at  once  from  her  engagement  with 
myself.  I  understand,  of  course,  that  even  did  I  not 
do  so  you  would  have  found  it  necessary  to  break  it 
off.  But  I  wish  also  freely  and  of  my  own  accord  to 
release  her  from  the  promise  she  made  me  to  become 
my  wife.  That  makes  things,  of  course,  more  painful 
for  mC;  but  perhaps  a  little  less  so  for  you.     More- 


32  A    TEltniBLE  IXIJEIilTANCE. 

over  it  is  tlio  right  course  of  action.  I  find  myself 
and  my  family  suddcMdy  involved  in  a  terrible  suspi- 
cion of  wliicli  I  remained  till  yesterday  in  utter  i<^no- 
rance.  Till  yesterday,  too,  I  had  never  doubted  the 
truth  of  the  suspicion  as  against  Dr.  Lichfield,  whom 
1  now  discover  to  be  my  own  father.  It  is  my  ob- 
vious duty,  as  matters  now  stand,  to  disprove,  if  pos- 
sible, that  fearful  allegation.  If  I  cannot  disprove  it, 
or  until  I  disprove  it,  I  shall  never  marry.  From  this 
moment  forth  it  will  be  my  first  business  in  life  to  in- 
vestigate the  question.  I  shall  ho2)e  to  throw  some 
further  light  upon  it.  Meanwhile  I  wish  to  release 
your  daughter  unconditionally  from  her  existing  en- 
gagement." 

Sir  Arthur  bowed  liis  head  slightly.  "  Harry,"  he 
said,  not  coldly,  but  sternly,  "  there  is  no  reason  why 
I  should  not  still  call  you  Harry,  in  spite  of  this  pain- 
ful and  distressing  discovery  —  no  other  course  is 
possible  for  either  of  us  under  the  circumstances.  I 
recognize  that  you  are  acting  as  a  man  of  honor. 
But,"  and  here  he  eyed  him  with  a  curious  gleam  of 
suspicion  in  his  cold  gray  eye,  "  I  would  strongly  urge 
you  not  to  pursue  the  investigation  which  you  now 
propose  to  yourself.  I  know  and  knew  all  the  cir- 
cumstances ;  I  am  convinced  —  and  I  speak  earnestly 
upon  the  matter — that  no  shadow  of  suspicion  could 
rest  upon  any  other  living  soul  except  Dr.  Lichfield.  If 
you  can  satisfy  yourself  in  your  own  mind  that  any 
possible  loophole  of  escape  from  the  crushing  force 
of  the  evidence  against  him  anywhere  exists,  why, 
salve  yourself  with  it  for  your  own  private  benefit, 
and  let  the  question  rest  as  best  you  may.  But  to 
re-open  the  matter  now  would  be  only  more  fully  to 
condemn  the  man  whom  we  have  just  discovered  to  be 


A   TEIiRIIiLE  INUERITAyCE.  83 

your  own  father.  I  implore  you  for  your  own  sake 
not  to  mako  suspicion  certainty  ;  I  implore  you  for 
the  sake  of  others  not  to  re-open  a  settled  question, 
and  turn  men's  minds  from  the  true  (puirter  upon 
others  whom  1  know  to  be  absolutely  innocent.  Drop 
the  subject,  and  no  one  else  need  ever  know  you  are 
Lichfield's  son.  I  shall  keep  it  a  secret  even  from 
my  own  wife  ;  n<*ither  Lady  Woolrycth  nor  Bertha 
shall  ever  learn  your  identity  from  me  or  know  why 
this  engagement  has  been  broken  off." 

Harry  bent  his  head  in  crushed  silence.  He  hardly 
knew  what  to  say  or  think.  At  last  he  murmured  in 
a  low  tone,  "That  is  kind  and  generous  of  you,  indeed, 
Sir  Arthur.  I  thank  you  for  your  reticence."  Then 
after  a  pause,  "  May  I  see  Bertha  ?  " 

"  Alone  ?  " 

"  Alone." 

Sir  Arthur  hesitated.  "  You  may,"  he  said  after  a 
short  pause,  "  provided  you  explain  to  her  clearly  and 
succinctly  that  your  engagement  is  broken  off  at  once 
and  forever." 

"I  will,"  Harry  answered.  "The  chance  of  clear- 
ing my  father's  memory  is,  I  acknowledge,  so  very 
slight  that  I  need  not  practically  mention  it  to  Bertha." 

Sir  Arthur  rang.  "Remember,"  he  said,  as  he 
waited  for  the  servant,  "  I  advise  you  strongly  to 
abstain  from  inquiring  into  this  painful  question.  It 
will  only  bring  more  misery  upon  your  own  head. 
Thomas,  will  you  ask  Miss  Woolrych  to  come  down 
and  speak  to  Mr.  Prior  in  the  study  ?  "  And  he  left 
the  room  very  abruptly  with  a  very  troubled  air,  and 
a  half-frightened  look  fixed  full  upon  Harry. 

It  was  a  terrible  thing  for  the  young  doctor  to  have  to 
explain  to  Bertha  —  or  rather  to  break  off  the  engage- 


34  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

ment  without  explaining ;  but  Harry  managed  some- 
how to  do  it.  T3ertha  was  tearful,  silent,  and  confiding ; 
the  sense  of  unknown  evil  oppressed  her ;  but  when 
Harry  told  her  they  could  never  marry,  and  that  the 
fault  was  none  of  his,  or  hers,  or  her  father's,  but  a 
Tisitation  of  Providence,  so  to  speak,  incalculable  be- 
forehand by  any  one  of  them,  she  trusted  him  and 
believed  him,  and  somehow  felt  in  some  undefined 
way  that  Harry  was  acting  rightly  and  nobly. 
Thank  Heaven  for  that  simple  and  beautiful  trustful- 
ness of  a  true  and  pure  and  good  woman  !  It  helps 
us  out  through  our  deepest  difficulties,  and  makes  the 
hard  way  of  life  easier  for  us  at  the  very  moment 
when  it  seems  most  impossible. 

"Good-by,  Harry,"  she  said,  with  her  heart-strings 
breaking,  but  with  a  firm  voice  as  he  rose  to  leave  her. 
"  Good-by  forever.  But  I  shall  always  love  you,  and 
I  shall  always  pray  for  you." 

"Good-by,  darling,"  Harry  answered,  in  a  choking 
voice.  "It  is  terrible,  terrible;  but  it  is  the  only 
thing  right  and  possible.  Thank  you  for  trusting  me. 
Good-by  forever." 

And  he  went  forth  into  the  village  street  of  Melbury 
a  broken  man,  sustained  only,  if  at  all,  by  the  inner  con- 
sciousness that  he  was  acting  after  the  dictates  of  his 
own  conscience.  Until  he  could  clear  up  that  horrible 
doubt  for  himself  and  others,  he  could  never  again 
speak  to  Bertha. 


VI. 

It  was  impossible  for  Harry  to  stop  at  Melbury. 
He  made  a  hasty  arrangement  for  a  man  from  his  old 
liospital  to  take  his  place,  and   removed  with  his 


A   TERRIBLE  INUERITANCE.  85 

mother  and  sister  for  the  time  being  to  London. 
There  he  would  soon  lose  himself  in  the  crowd :  to  be 
lost  in  the  crowd  was  now  his  chief  desire.  Still, 
even  so,  his  first  care  would  be  to  see  Sergeant 
Thorowgood,  his  father's  counsel,  who  fortunately 
was  still  living.  Harry  went  to  call  upon  him  in  his 
rooms  at  the  Albany  —  for  the  Sergeant  was  a  bache- 
lor—  and  found  him  an  agreeable  and  kind-hearted 
old  man,  with  a  distinct  recollection  of  all  the  circum- 
stances attendant  upon  the  famous  trial.  He  sent  in 
his  card  as  Mr.  Harry  Prior  only,  and  did  not  at 
first  let  the  old  barrister  know  the  nature  of  the  in- 
terest he  took  in  Dr.  Lichfield. 

As  soon  as  Sergeant  Thorowgood  heard  the  case 
mentioned,  his  face  at  once  assumed  a  different 
expression.  "My  dear  sir,"  he  said  with  great  ear- 
nestness, eying  Harry  closely  from  under  his  deep 
eyebrows,  "  do  you  know,  that's  a  perfect  monomania 
of  mine.  I'm  sure  beforehand  you  won't  agree  with 
me  —  nobody  ever  does  agree  with  me  about  it  — 
but  I'm  as  convinced  as  ever  I  was  convinced  of  any- 
thing in  all  my  life  that  Lichfield  didn't  poison  his 
uncle.  He  was  an  innocent  man,  if  ever  there  was 
one.  Do  you  think  I  don't  know  a  murderer  when 
I  see  him  ?  And  at  my  time  of  life,  too,  with  fifty 
years'  experience  of  the  Old  Bailey  and  the  Central 
Criminal!  Nonsense,  sir;  nonsense.  Lichfield  opened 
his  whole  heart  to  me  in  confidence  as  his  counsel 
—  told  me  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  entire  case  as 
plain  as  a  pikestaff ;  and  I'd  go  to  the  stake  for  it 
this  very  minute  on  that  man's  innocence.  1  would, 
I  assure  you.  I've  defended  a  score  or  so  of  murder- 
ers in  my  time,  and  got  'em  off,  too,  half  a  dozen  or 
so  of  'em,  I'm  afraid,  as  bad  cases  as  are  going  about 


30  A  TERIilliLE  INUERITANCE. 

unhung  to-day  in  England.  lUit  Lichfield  wasn't  one 
of  those.  I  said  to  the  jury  -  it's  contrary  to  pro- 
fessional etiquette,  1  know,  but  still  I  said  it -- 
'Gentlemen  of  the  jury,'  1  said,  'upon  my  soul  and 
conscience,  I  believe  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  to  be  as 
innocent  as  a  baby  of  the  crime  he  now  stands 
charged  with.'  And  I  believe  it  still,  and  as  long  as 
I  live  I  shall  always  believe  it.  That  man  came  to 
his  death  in  jail  of  the  sheer  shame  of  injured  inno- 
cence, universally  believed  upon  crushing  evidence  to 
be  guilty  of  a  deliberate  and  diabolical  murder."  ^ 

^'  But  who  could  have  done  it  if  Lichfield  didn't  ?  " 
Harry  asked,  with  a  secret  thrill  of  delight  at  even 
this  single  ray  of  hope,  coming  from  so  unexpected 
and  critical  a  quarter. 

The  old  bnrrister  shook  his  head  sagely.  "  I  have 
my  ideas,"  he  said.  "  I  know  whom  I  suspect.  But 
I  keep  the  fear  of  the  law  of  libel  ever  before  my 
eyes  here  in  England.  I'm  not  going  to  accuse  any 
one  without  due  evidence  —  especially  not  a  distm- 
guislied  officer  in  Her  Majesty's  service." 

A  second  suspicion  flashed  in  a  moment  across 
Harry's  brain.  He  stifled  it  down.  It  was  too  horri- 
ble. No,  not  to  rehabilitate  his  own  father.  Even  to 
himself  he  wouldn't  acknowledge  it.  It  would,  in- 
deed, avail  him  little  if  he  proved  his  father's  inno- 
cence, only  to  put  off  the  burden  of  the  crime  upon 
the  shoulders  of  Bertha's. 

And,  yet,  between  one  or  the  other  he  must  surely 
choose.  Come  what  might  of  it,  he  must  search  out 
this  matter  now  to  the  bitter  end.  He  thought  of  all 
the  possible  alternatives,  all  the  links  and  loopholes 
in  that  well-sifted  case,  and  could  think  of  absolutely 
no  other  conceivable  person.     He   remembered   Sit 


A    TERRIBLE  INUERITANCE.  37 

Arthur's  suspicious  look,  his  anxiety  not  to  have  the 
question  re-opened,  his  obvious  reticence  in  general 
society  about  his  change  of  name,  his  eagerness  to  be 
known  only  as  a  Woolrych  and  never  as  a  Flamstead, 
his  evident  fear  lest  Harry  should  begin  a  course  of 
inquiry  which  might  perhaps  end  by  incriminating 
himself  as  the  murderer.  Great  beads  of  perspira- 
tion stood  cold  and  clammy  upon  Harry's  brow. 
Could  he,  then,  only  exculpate  his  own  father's 
memory  by  bringing  Bertha's  father  to  the  gallows  ? 

In  the  agony  of  the  moment  the  name  escaped  him. 
"  You  think,"  he  said,  "  it  was  Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  ! " 

The  old  barrister  started  in  surprise  and  helped 
himself  to  a  pinch  of  snuff.  '•  My  dear  sir,"  he  said 
dryly,  "  I  incriminate  nobody.  I  accuse  nobody.  I 
cast  suspicion  upon  nobody  :  Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  is 
a  distinguished  officer  in  Her  Majesty's  service.  Mr. 
Arthur  Flamstead  was  an  intimate  friend  of  the  Lich- 
field family.  Mr.  Arthur  Flamstead  alone  had  access 
to  poor  Lichfield's  surgery.  Mr.  Arthur  Flamstead 
had  reasons  of  his  own,  perhaps,  for  wishing  old 
Colonel  Lichfield  out  of  the  way.  Colonel  Lichfield 
was  then  the  favored  suitor  for  the  hand  of  the  young 
lady  —  a  lady  with  a  very  large  fortune  —  who  is  now 
Lady  Woolrych.  jNIr.  Arthur  Flamstead,  to  my  cer- 
tain knowledge,  betrayed  a  very  great  anxiety  that 
Dr.  Lichfield's  assistant,  a  young  man  of  the  name 
of  AVaterlow,  who  was  missing  immediately  after  the 
murder  "  —  Harry  nodded  acquiescence  —  "should  not 
be  searched  for  and  should  be  kept  out  of  the  way. 
Three  months  later  Mr.  Arthur  Flamstead  married  the 
lady  in  question,  and  almost  immediately  assumed  the 
name  of  Woolrych,  going  into  the  army  in  a  cavalry 
regiment  then  under  orders  to  sail  for  India.     I  don't 


38  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

wish  to  prejudge  any  one,  but  I  think  we  have  here 
the  terms  of  an  equation :  the  Mr.  Arthur  Elamstead  ^ 
of  the  trial  equals  the  Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  of  to-day,  ' 
and  the  case  lies,  not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon 
it,  between  Mr.  Arthur  Flamstead  and  "  — 

"And?" 

"  Your  father." 

Harry  gave  a  sigh  of  extreme  relief.  "  Why  my 
father  ?  "  he  asked  quietly,  glad  to  be  freed  from  the 
painful  burden  of  confessing  his  relationship. 

"  Because  you  look  exactly  like  him,  and  exactly 
like  a  little  boy  of  two  years  old,  dressed  in  deep 
black,  whom  Mrs.  Lichfield  brought  into  court  the 
morning  before  poor  Lichfield  died  in  prison  of  a 
sudden  aneurism.  Let  us  make  no  pretences  to  one 
another  about  the  matter.  You  are  young  Lichfield, 
and  you  wish,  like  an  honorable  man,  to  clear  your 
father's  memory." 

"  At  a  terrible  cost,"  Harry  cried  in  agony. 

"Why?" 

"  In  confidence  ?  " 

"  In  confidence." 

"  Because  I  —  I  have  been  engaged  to  Sir  Arthur 
Woolrych's  daughter." 

The  old  barrister  drew  a  long  breath  and  whistled 
to  himself  with  a  certain  comical  air  of  embarrass- 
ment. "Whew,"  he  said.  "That  certainly  compli- 
cates matters  somewhat.  But  we  must  go  now  into  .^ 
this  thing  together.  It  can't  be  dropped;  we  must 
ferret  the  truth  out.  At  least  you  want  to  get  at  the 
truth.  Is  your  mother  living  ?  Well,  then,  for  her 
sake,  at  any  rate,  you  must  wish  to  firid  out  that  your 
father  was  no  murderer." 

Harry  bent  his  head  once  more.    "  On  all  accounts," 


A  TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  39 

he  said,  "  we  must  get  at  the  truth.  But  how  are  we 
ever  to  get  at  it  nowadays  ?  Time  has  gone  by  so 
long,  I  fear,  that  it's  too  late  at  present  to  begin  an 
inquiry." 

"  Never  too  late  to  find  out  murder,"  the  old  Ser- 
geant ans\\ered  cheerfully.  "  We  have  a  clew,  a  clew 
the  importance  of  which  I  pointed  out  in  vain  to  the 
police  at  the  time :  the  extraorc^inary  disappearance 
of  the  witness  Waterlow.  The  lad  was  at  Dr.  Lich- 
field's on  the  very  day  when  the  fatal  plaster  was 
made  up ;  that  much  is  certain.  He  disappeared, 
suddenly  and  mysteriously,  the  day  after.  Mr.  Arthur 
riamstead  gave  him  half  a  sovereign  the  night  of  the 
murder.  Why  did  he  do  it  ?  What  was  it  for  ? 
Where  did  the  poor  lad  disappear  ?  What  has 
become  of  him  ?  Mark  my  word,  sir,  Mr.  Arthur 
riamstead  knows,  and  unless  I'm  very  greatly  mis- 
taken in  my  surmise,  Mr.  Arthur  Flamstead,  after 
using  him  as  his  tool,  got  rid  of  him  quietly." 

Harry's  face  grew  white  with  horror. 

"  That's  a  very  awful  accusation,"  he  gasped  out  at 
last,  "  to  bring  up  —  to  bring  up  against  Miss  Wool- 
rych's  father.  Isn't  there  any  other  alternative 
open  ?  Can't  we  suppose  anything  else  on  earth 
was  possible  ?  " 

Sergeant  Thorowgood  smiled  quietly.  To  him, 
these  things  were  all  ordinary  matters  of  criminal 
business.  One  man's  as  likely  to  be  guilty  as  an- 
other. "Well,"  he  said,  with  a  second  big  pinch  of 
snuff,  "  I  don't  know,  I'm  sure.  It's  none  of  my  busi- 
ness. But,  still,  I  take  a  professional  interest  in  the 
matter.  I  wanted  the  police  to  investigate  it  at  the 
time ;  but  after  Dr.  Lichfield's  death  they'd  take  no 
further  steps  in  clearing  up  the  question.    They  were 


40  A  TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

quite  convinced  for  their  part  that  Lichfield  was  the 
murderer :  the  coroner's  jury  had  returned  a  verdict 
a-ainst  him;  public  opinion  was  amply  satisfied;  no 
suspicion  attached  to  anybody  else,  and,  except  your 
mother,  I  don't  believe  there  was  another  soul  m 
England  who  didn't  think  Dr.  Lichfield  guilty.  I 
was  considered  quite  a  monomaniac,  I  assure  you,  for 
taking  his  part,  and  I  got  tired  of  talking  about  it, 
merely  to  be  laughed  at  by  everybody  everywhere. 
But  to  this  day  I  firmly  believe,  whoever  committed 
that  cruel  crime,  it  was  not  and  couldn't  be  Dr.  Lich- 
field." ,  , 
"  Was  no  attempt  ever  made,  then,"  Harry  asked 

eagerly,  "  to  track  the  assistant  ?  " 

"No  attempt  was  ever  made  by  anybody  but  myself; 
and  as  for  me,  I  got  tired  of  it  in  the  end,  finding  out 
notliing.  All  I  know  is  this  ;  the  boy  was  last  seen 
alive  the  night  of  the  murder.  Dr.  Lichfield  had 
given  him  a  holiday  the  next  day.  On  that  holiday 
he    disappeared    into   space,   and  was    never   again 

heard  of." 

"And  you  don't  know  how  to  track  him  m  any 


way  ^  " 


"Pardon  me,  I  do;  I  was  just  coming  to  it.  Some 
six  months  since,  I  received  a  singular  communication 
from  a  person  in  America,  made  in  a  very  roundabout 
manner  through  a  New  York  solicitor,  inquiring  of 
me,  as  Lichfield's  counsel,  whether  any  representa- 
tives of  the  Lichfield  family  were  still  living.  As  I 
.  did  not  then  know  of  your  existence,  I  wrote  back  to 
say  that  so  far  as  I  could  tell  they  had  all  died  out  or 
disappeared  entirely.  But  I  begged  my  New  York 
correspondent,  as  a  matter  of  personal  curiosity,  to  let 
me  know  from  whom  the  inquiry  proceeded,  and  with 


A    TERIilBLE  INHERITANCE.  41 

what  object  it  had  been  set  on  foot.  Well,  solicitors, 
you  know,  are  precious  wary  people.  The  Yankee 
lawyer  didn't  answer  my  question  very  directly ;  he 
said  his  client  was  in  possession  of  certain  facts  about 
Dr.  Lichfield  which  might  have  been  of  use  if  any 
members  of  the  Lichfield  family  were  left  alive,  but 
which  would  be  useless  under  any  other  circumstances. 
I  wrote  once  more,  earnestly  inquiring  whether  their 
client  knew  anything  of  the  fate  of  the  boy  Waterlow. 
Evidently  that  inquiry  frightened  my  informant.  I 
have  never  received  another  line  upon  the  subject 
from  that  day  to  this ;  and  as  the  question  was  then 
one  of  merely  abstract  interest  to  me,  I  didn't  care  to 
push  my  investigations  farther  for  the  moment.  But 
I  have  very  little  doubt  that  the  letter  came  from 
some  person  who  was  aware  of  the  facts  as  to  the 
boy  "Waterlow.  Perhaps  it  may  have  been  an  accom- 
plice or  accessory  to  the  boy's  murder ;  for  murdered 
he  was,  I  firmly  believe,  to  get  rid  of  him  and  burke 
his  evidence  —  drowned,  very  likely,  or  thrown  into 
the  river,  and  at  the  instigation,  I  don't  doubt,  of  the 
real  poisoner,  whoever  that  poisoner  may  have  been." 

"  But  don't  you  think  it  possible,"  Harry  inquired 
with  a  fresh  burst  of  hope,  "  that  the  letter  may  have 
been  sent  by  Waterlow  himself  ?  May  he  not  have 
got  away  to  America  somehow,  and  now  he  is  seized 
with  an  after-tit  of  remorse  and  a  desire  to  tell  all  that 
he  knows  of  his  own  share  in  this  terrible  tragedy  ?  " 

The  Sergeant  shook  his  gray  head  decisively.  "  No, 
no,"  he  said,  "  it  can't  be  that  way.  Waterlow  never 
left  England  alive.  Before  the  trial,  both  sides  made 
every  effort  possible  to  procure  liim  —  the  Crown, 
because  they  thought  his  evidence  would  be  conclu 
sive  against  the  prisoner  ;  and  Dr.  Lichfield,  because 


42  A    TEBBIBLE  IXIIERITANCE. 

he  thought  his  evidence  must  tell,  as  far  as  it  went, 
in  his  own  favor.     We  searched  for  him  high  and  low 
in  London  and  elsewhere.     Every  port  was  watched ; 
every  emigrant  steamer  boarded.      The  whole  police 
of  England  was  on  the  alert  to  find  him,  and  if  he 
had  been  alive  he  must  inevitably  have  been  forth- 
coming.    One  person  alone  threw  difficulties  m  the 
way  —  suggested  explanations,  did  his  best  to  befog 
and  bemuddle  the  question,  and  that  person,  as  you 
may  guess,  was  Uv.  Arthur  Flamstead.     If  he  doesn't 
know  what  became  of  Waterlow,  nobody  in  England 
knows,  I  venture  to  tell  you." 

"And  do  you  remember  the  name  of  your  Kew 
York  correspondent  ?  "  Harry  asked  eagerly.  "  We 
ought  to  follow  up  that  clew,  you  see.  I  can  face  the 
facts,  however  terrible  they  may  be.  But  I  cannot 
rest  now  till  I  have  settled  the  question  once  and  for- 


ever." 


"  I  have  the  address  here,"  Sergeant  Thorowgood 
answered,  rising  and  walking  across  to  a  desk  in  the 
corner.  "  There  it  is :  '  Gregg  and  McMurdo,  214, 
East  Twenty-third  Street,  New  York  City.'  " 

"  I  will  write  and  find  out  all  about  it,"  Harry  said 
with  a  flashed  face.  "This  suspense  is  killing.  I 
had  rather  know  the  worst  either  way  than  remain  m 
such  doubt  and  terror  as  at  present." 


VII. 

Harry  lost   no    time  in  writing    to  New  York 

through   a    London    solicitor,   whom    he    instructed 

merely  to  say  to  the  American  firm  that  the  inquiries 

now  addressed  them  were  made  at  the  instance  of  a 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  43 

son  of  Dr.  Lichfield's.  It  was  a  long  time  to  wait 
for  the  answer.  Meanwhile,  he  could  do  and  think  of 
nothing  else,  and  he  spent  his  whole  days  at  the 
British  Museum  and  among  the  old  law  reports,  hunt- 
ing up  the  minutest  recoverable  circumstances  about 
the  trial  of  Dr.  Lichfield. 

The  more  he  looked  the  question  in  the  face,  the 
more  did  the  conviction  deepen  upon  him  that  the 
real  poisoner  was  not  his  father  but  Sir  Arthur  Wool- 
rych.  It  was  horrible,  terrible,  cruel  to  believe  it :  if 
the  facts  forced  the  truth  upon  him  at  last,  Harry  did 
not  see  how  he  could  possibly  give  up  Bertha's  father 
to  tardy  justice :  and  yet  that  conclusion  seemed 
almost  inevitable,  by  the  light  of  the  depositions  and 
of  Sergeant  Thorowgood's  acute  suggestions.  Harry 
read  Arthur  Flamstead's  examination  and  cross-exami- 
nation at  the  trial,  and  two  things  were  abundantly 
clear  to  him :  first,  that  though  he  seemed  to  give  his 
evidence  with  extreme  reluctance,  that  evidence  itself 
told  distinctly  against  Dr.  Lichfield ;  it  was  the  sort  of 
evidence  a  man  might  give  who  pretended  to  be  a 
friend  of  the  prisoner's,  but  secretly  wished  to  put 
the  blame  of  the  murder  upon  the  prisoner's  shoulders ; 
and  secondly,  that  he  had  especially  tried  to  evade 
and  elude  all  questions  put  to  him  with  reference  to 
the  disappearance  of  the  boy  Waterlow.  Sir  Arthur 
had  prevaricated :  of  that  he  was  certain.  The  more 
he  read  the  reports  of  the  trial,  reading  between  the 
lines  in  the  way  that  Sergeant  Thorowgood's  remarks 
had  suggested,  the  more  abundantly  did  the  truth 
seem  clear  to  him,  that  Arthur  Flamstead  (as  he  then 
was)  knew  perfectly  the  facts  about  Waterlow's  dis- 
appearance; and  was  trying  to  conceal  them  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  jury. 


44       '  A    TEnniBLE  INnERITANCE. 

Yet  it  soomed  to  Harry,  with  his  frank,  open,  hon- 
orable nature,  quite  rt^pugnant  to  be  thus,  as  it  were, 
ph)tting  Jind  prying  about  l^ertlia's  fatlier,  a  man 
whom  ho  had  always  hitlierto  liked  and  respected,  in 
spite  of  his  somewhat  austere  military  dignity,  with- 
out at  least  telling  him  the  nature  of  his  inquiries, 
and  letting  him  know  in  the  most  delicate,  yet  straight- 
forward manner,  that  they  were  being  prosecuted. 
He  didn't  -wish  to  spring  a  mine  upon  Sir  Arthur;  and 
so  a  few  weeks  afterwards  he  went  down  to  Melbury, 
and  asked  once  more  to  meet  Sir  Arthur  by  appoint- 
ment at  his  own  now  deserted  cottage. 

Sir  Arthur  met  him,  Harry  imagined,  not  quite  so 
frankly  and  easily  as  of  old.  That,  perhajis,  was 
perfectly  natural,  and  he  must  expect  it  in  future  ; 
Lichfield's  son  could  not  look  forward  to  a  cordial 
greeting  from  those  who  knew  the  secret  of  his 
origin.  But  besides  all  this,  Harry  fancied  —  was  it 
fancy  or  reality  ?  —  that  Sir  Arthur  shuffled  and 
hesitated  suspiciouslj^,  seemed  half  afraid,  in  fact, 
of  too  open  admission.  Harry  told  him  in  part  of 
his  visit  to  Sergeant  Thorowgood,  omitting  of  course 
the  Sergeant's  opinion  of  Sir  Arthur  himself ;  and  he 
told  him  also  of  the  clew  which  Thorowgood  had  put 
into  his  hands  for  tracing  the  fate  of  the  boy  "Water- 
low.  At  the  first  mention  of  Waterlow's  name,  Sir 
Arthur's  face  grew  suddenly  blanched  and  rigid  with 
horror.  "  "Who  told  you  about  Waterlow  ?  "  he  asked 
eagerly,  clutching  for  support  at  the  back  of  a  chair. 
"  How  did  you  come  to  hear  of  Waterlow  ?  How  did 
you  ever  know  there  was  any  such  person  ?  " 

"I  have  read  \\\)  the  full  reports  of  the  case," 
Harry  answered  quietly,  ''and  I  want  now  to  find 
out  for  myself  what  has  become  of  this  missing  assist- 


A  TERlUliLE  INHERITANCE.  45 

ant.  Sergeant  Tliorowgood  thinks,"  and  he  eyed  Sir 
Arthur  closely  as  he  si)oke,  "  that  tlie  boy  Waterlow 
was  put  out  of  the  way  by  some  guilty  person  the 
day  after  the  murder." 

Sir  Arthur  sprang  aside  as  though  something  had 
stung  him.  "  Put  out  of  the  way,"  he  cried  ;  "  why, 
what  do  you  mean  by  that,  Harry  ?  Do  you  nunm 
murdered  ?  Ay,  ay,  I  suppose  murdered  !  Tliorow- 
good was  always  on  the  wrong  track.  I  saw  it  in  the 
inquiry ;  I  saw  it  at  the  trial.  .  .  .  Harry,  I  tell  you 
the  boy  Waterlow  was  not  murdered.  I  believe,  my- 
self, he  fled  the  country,  at  your  father's  request,  be- 
cause he  did  not  wish  to  give  evidence  which  would 
have  sent  your  father  to  the  gallows." 

"  Where  do  you  think  he  is  now  ?  "  Harry  asked, 
his  lips  white  and  trembling  with  excitement. 

Sir  Arthur  sank  back  exhausted  in  an  easy-chair, 
folded  his  hands  before  him  helplessly,  and  rubl)ed 
the  palms  together  with  nervous  energy.  "I  have 
some  reason  to  believe,"  he  said  at  last,  "  that  Water- 
low  is  living  under  an  assumed  name  somewhere  iu 
America." 

Harry  looked  at  him  with  a  searching  glance.  It 
was  a  terrible  thing  to  think  about  Bertha's  father ; 
it  had  been  a  terrible  thing  to  think  about  his  own ; 
but  he  wondered  silently  in  his  heart  to  himself  which 
of  those  two  had  been  the  real  murderer. 

The  interview  was  a  short  and  very  embarrassed 
one.  In  Harry's  eyes,  Sir  Arthur  seemed  all  the 
time  to  be  shuffling  and  prevaricating.  What  was 
worse,  he  seemed  to  be  terribly  anxious  —  anxious 
and  frightened  for  his  own  safety,  Harry  somehow 
fancied,  whenever  Harry  spoke  of  re-opening  the 
question  and  endeavoring  to  vindicate  his  father's 


40  A  TEnnillLE  INlIElilTANCE. 

character.  Was  it  slavish  fear  for  liis  own  life,  or 
conscience-stricken  anxiety  for  the  shame  and  disgrace 
of  a  tardy  exi)osure  for  liis  wife  and  daugliter  ? 

Yet,  when  Harry  was  leaving,  the  gray  old  general, 
ronsing  himself  as  from  a  trance,  with  his  tall  thin 
figure  and  his  clear-cut  military  face,  laid  his  hand 
like  a  father  upon  Harry's  shoulder,  and  cried  in  a 
voice  full  of  genuine  emotion,  "Harry,  Harry,  for 
your  own  sake,  my  boy,  and  for  Bertha's  sake,  and 
my  sake,  don't  try  to  push  this  fruitless  inquiry 
one  step  farther !  Don't,  I  implore  you.  You  will 
only  make  us  all  unhappy.  You  are  re-opening  the 
most  appalling  chapter  of  my  life.  My  boy,  my  boy, 
you  will  kill  me,  you  will  kill  me."  And  then  he 
wrung  Harry's  hand  hard,  and  before  the  young  man 
had  time  to  answer  him,  stumbled  blindly  out  into  the 
streets  of  Melbury. 

Harry  stood  long  watching  him  from  the  doorstep, 
his  own  eyes  dim  with  tears,  and  his  heart  almost 
standing  still  with  horror  within  him.  Sir  Arthur 
tottered  feebly  up  the  street ;  Harry's  heart  went  out 
in  pity  to  him  as  he  went.  It  was  a  painful  crisis, 
deal  with  it  as  he  might.  To  have  arraigned  that  old 
man  after  so  many  years  for  the  unforgotten  crime  of 
his  early  youth,  was  in  itself  almost  an  act  of  cruelty. 
Surely  his  punishment  was  already  more  than  he 
could  bear!  The  law  could  do  no  worse  for  Sir 
Arthur  Woolrych  than  his  own  heart  must  already 
have  done  for  him. 

At  the  railway  station,  a  bundle  of  texts,  printed 
in  very  large  letters,  hung  loose  upon  the  wall.  As 
Harry  entered,  with  thoughts  like  these  burning  in 
his  heart,  he  started  at  sight  of  the  single  sentence 
that  stared  him  in  the  face  from  the  printed  placard 


A   TERlilliLE  INHERITANCE.  47 

opposite:  —  "Judge  not,  that  ye  he  not  judged." 
Was  lie  too  judging  again  too  hastily?  If  others 
had  made  up  their  minds  with  undue  precipitancy,  as 
he  himself  had  done  at  first,  that  his  father  was  really 
the  Erith  murderer,  might  he  not  also  now  be  making 
up  his  mind  too  fast  on  slender  evidence  against  Sir 
Arthur  Woolrych  ?  The  timely  suggestion  sank  dee]) 
into  his  mind.  He  returned  to  London  hoping  against 
hope.  Yet  his  very  hope  was  in  itself  despair;  for 
was  it  not  true  that  to  vindicate  his  father  was  to 
condemn  Bertha's,  and  to  vindicate  Bertha's  was  to 
condemn  his  own  ? 


VIII. 

A  WEEK  later,  Harry  was  startled  by  receiving  a 
solicitor's  letter  from  America,  which  ran  as  follows :  — 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  In  reply  to  your  favor  of  the  9th 
inst.  we  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  our  client, 
Surgeon-Major  Charles  G.  Withers,  formerly  of  the 
United  States  Army,  who  is  now  in  this  city,  having 
heard  that  a  son  of  the  late  Dr.  Lichfield  is  still  liv- 
ing, has  made  up  his  mind  to  proceed  to  Europe 
almost  immediately,  and  will  arrive  in  Liverpool  by 
the  steamer  Atirania  shortly  after  your  receipt  of  this 
letter.  We  will  mail  you  his  address  in  a  few  days, 
and  will  instruct  him  to  call  without  delay  at  the 
ofl&ce  of  your  solicitor  in  London.  —  Eespectfully, 

"  Gregg  and  McMurdo." 

Neither  Harry  nor  Sergeant  Thorowgood  could  make 
much  of  this  singular  and  non-committing  letter.    The 


48  A  TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

only  conjecture  either  of  them  couhl  hazard  was  that 
Surgeon-Major  Charles  G.  Withers,  whose  name 
certainly  sounded  very  American,  was  a  person  who 
had,  in  some  way,  been  privy  to  the  disappearance  of 
the  boy  Waterlow.  Evidently,  however,  let  him  be 
who  he  might,  he  attached  great  importance  to  the 
communication  he  had  to  make  to  them,  or  he  would 
not  have  thought  it  worth  his  while  to  cross  the 
Atlantic  for  the  sake  of  seeing  a  son  of  Dr.  Lichfield. 
So  Harry  waited,  possessing  his  soul  with  what 
patience  he  could,  for  this  new  development  to  work 
itself  out  in  full  detail. 

In  a  few  days  more  he  received  an  intimation  that 
Dr.  Withers  was  stopping  at  the  Langham  Hotel,  and 
would  give  an  interview  to  Harry  and  Sergeant 
Thorowgood  on  the  next  Tuesday,  at  eleven  in  the 
morning.  "  If  Mr.  Arthur  Flamstead  is  still  living," 
the  stranger  wrote,  underlining  his  words,  "  I  should 
particularly  wish  him  also  to  be  present  at  our  meet- 
ing. Mr.  Flamstead  was  intimately  bound  up  with 
the  event  which  led  to  the  death  of  Colonel  Lichfield ; 
and  as  I  have  to  make  an  explanation  which  closely 
concerns  him,  I  trust  you  will  have  the  kindness  to 
hunt  up  his  present  address,  if  he  still  lives,  and  ask 
him  to  be  present  at  the  time  and  place  mentioned. 
I  believe,  however,  he  must  have  died  long  since,  as  I 
traced  him  shortly  after  into  a  regiment  of  Lancers 
from  which  his  name  disappeared,  to  judge  by  the 
Army  List,  some  twenty-four  years  ago.  But  if  I  am 
wrong  in  this  conjecture,  it  ought  to  be  easy  for  your 
solicitor  to  hunt  him  up  with  the  books  of  reference 
he  has  doubtless  at  his  disposal.  A  man  who  has 
held  a  commission  in  the  British  Army  ought  at  any 
time  to  be  forthcoming  when  wanted  for  legcd 
purposes."  ^     ' 


,1 

it 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  49 

With  much  doubt  and  trepidation,  Harry  forwarded 
this  letter  exactly  as  he  received  it,  to  Sir  Arthur 
Woolrych.  Immensely  to  his  surprise,  Sir  Arthur 
wrote  back  at  once,  a  short,  curt  note,  saying  that  he 
would  call  at  the  Langham  Hotel  on  the  day  and  hour 
appointed  by  Dr.  Withers.  Would  he  really  come  ? 
Harry  wondered;  that  was  the  question.  Had  the 
crime  of  his  youth  tracked  him  down  at  last ;  and  if 
so,  would  he  face  his  accuser  now  like  a  man,  or  fly 
like  a  coward  at  the  first  flush  of  danger  ? 

On  the  Tuesday  morning,  as  Sergeant  Thorowgood 
and  Harry  walked  up  together  to  the  steps  of  the 
Langham,  a  hansom  drew  up  at  the  curbstone  opposite, 
and  Sir  Arthur  stepped  from  it,  firm  and  erect  and 
stately  as  ever,  but  pale  as  death  and  looking  terriblj;- 
wan,  worn,  and  haggard.  Yet  he  gave  his  hand  cor- 
dially to  Harry,  and  bowed  a  distant  bow  to  Sergeant 
Thorowgood,  whom,  strange  to  say,  he  had  never  seen 
before  in  private  since  the  close  of  the  famous 
Lichfield  trial.  The  old  barrister  remembered  him 
perfectly,  and  summed  him  up  from  head  to  foot  with 
his  keen,  critical  Old  Bailey  stare. 

"It  is  long  since  we  met.  Sir  Arthur,"  he  said 
shortly ;  "  and  then  it  was  on  business  connected  with 
this  very  matter." 

Sir  Arthur's  face  never  changed  for  a  moment. 

"  It  was,"  he  said,  "  and  I  know  what  you  thought. 
I  never  for  one  second  concealed  it  from  myself.  For 
twenty-five  years  I  have  faced  vhe  worst.  This  morn- 
ing's interview,  I  hope  and  tiust,  will  at  last  release 

me." 

They  asked  for  Dr.  Withers,  and  were  shown  at 
once  into  a  front  sitting-room  on  the  first  floor.  A 
little  man,  thin,  bent,  and  wizened,  not  yet  fifty,  to 


50  A  TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

judge  by  his  face,  but  prematurely  aged  and  gray  and 
battered,  rose  from  his  seat  in  a  chair  by  the  fire- 
place, and  bowing  slightly,  with  much  effort,  mo- 
tioned them  each  into  their  places. 
'  "Mr.  Lichfield?"  he  said,  with  an  inquiring 
glance  towards  Harry. 

Harry  bent  his  head  in  silent  acquiescence.  "I 
have  never  borne  that  name  myself,"  he  said ;  "  but  I 
find  it  was  my  father's.  I  am  the  person  to  whom 
you  addressed  your  communication." 

"  I  need  not  ask  either  of  your  names,"  Dr.  Withers 
said,  turning  to  the  barrister  and  the  Greneral  to- 
gether. "  Changed  as  you  are,  you  are  less  changed 
than  I  am.  I  remember  both  of  your  faces  perfectly. 
You  are  Sergeant  Thorowgood;  and  you,  sir,  are 
Mr.  Arthur  Flamstead.  My  memory  is  probably  bet- 
ter than  yours ;  I  don't  suppose  you  can  either  of 
you  now  succeed  in  recognizing  me." 

"I  do,"  Sergeant  Thorowgood  answered,  without 
one  moment's  hesitation,  "  I  distinctly  remember  both 
face  and  voice  ;  your  name,  when  I  last  saw  you,  was 
Waterlow." 

Sir  Arthur  said  nothing,  but  Harry  noticed  a  flush 
of  color,  such  as  he  had  never  before  in  his  life 
observed,  come  suddenly  into  those  pallid  cheeks. 
It  was  a  flush  of  hope,  not  of  mere  excitement.  Sir 
Arthur  felt  the  load  of  suspicion  was  to  be  lifted  at 
last  from  his  uncomplaining  shoulders. 

"  Tell  us  at  once,"  Harry  cried  eagerly,  "  what  you 
have  to  say  about  the  Erith  murder." 

"  There  was  no  murder,"  Dr.  Withers  said  slowly 
and  solemnly.  "  No  blame  attaches  to  any  man  on 
earth  but  me,  and  even  to  me  the  blame  of  thoughtless 
carelessness  only.    It  was  /  who  put  the  curari  pow- 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  51 

der  into    the    zinc  ointment    for  dressing   Colonel 
Lichfield's  wound." 

If  a  thunderbolt  had  fallen  into  their  midst  that 
moment  it  could  not  have  produced  a  more  immediate 
effect  than  Dr.  Withers's  long-delayed  confession.  In- 
stantaneously, each  took  in  its  full  bearings,  both  on 
himself  and  his  neighbors.  The  double  load  was  lifted 
at  once  from  Harry's  tortured  and  distracted  mind. 
He  looked  at  Sir  Arthur.  The  old  soldier,  broken  at 
last  as  no  reverse  of  fortune  could  ever  have  broken 
him,  bowed  down  his  head  on  his  hands  between  his 
knees,  and  cried  like  a  child  in  silent  thankfulness ; 
then  with  a  sudden  burst  of  fervor  he  seized  Harry's 
hand  and  gripped  it  hard.  "  My  boy,  my  boy,"  he 
cried  convulsively,  "  we  are  both  saved  —  your  father 
from  the  shadow  of  that  horrible  crime  ;  myself  from 
the  burden  of  that  lifelong  suspicion.  For  twenty- 
five  years,  Harry,  I  thought  him  guilty ;  for  twenty- 
five  years,  I  have  expected  myself  to  see  Thorowgood's 
suspicion  take  definite  form  and  head  against  me. 
And  I  will  tell  you  now  what  I  have  never  told  any 
man  yet.  Two  days  before  the  trial,  Waterlow  gave 
me,  for  an  experimental  purpose,  an  ounce  of  curari. 
If  that  fact  had  come  out  in  evidence,  I  should  at 
once  have  been  universally  suspected  of  the  murder. 
Tell  us,  tell  us  all  about  it !  How  did  you  ever  come 
to  make  such  a  fatal  error  ?  " 

"  I  am  a  dying  man,"  Dr.  Withers  said ;  "  I  have 
never  recovered  from  the  hardships  of  the  campaign 
on  the  Potomac,  and  I  have  not  now  many  weeks  to 
live  ;  but  I  could  not  die  with  that  awful  mistake  of 
my  youth  unconfessed  upon  me.  I  was  less  to  blame, 
Mr.  Lichfield,"  turning  to  Harry,  "than  you  might 
imagine.  I  will  tell  you  briefly  the  main  facts ;  we 
can  come  back  to  the  details  afterwards. 


52  A    TERRIBLE  INIlERirANCE. 

"  On  the  evening  when  Colonel  Lichfield  died,  I 
was  working  as  usual  in  the  back  surgery.  The  doc. 
tor  had  given  me  a  holiday  for  the  next  day,  and  I 
meant  to  go  do  >vn  by  the  steamer  to  Margate.  You, 
sir,"  and  he  turned  as  he  spoke  to  Sir  Arthur,  "  had 
given  me  half  a  sovereign  that  evening  for  the  little 
commission  I  had  just  performed  for  you.  My  mind 
was  full  of  my  intended  outing,  when  the  doctor  gave 
me  the  prescription  to  make  up  for  his  uncle.  We 
had  a  dead  frog  then  lying  in  the  surgery,  and  the 
doctor  Avas  experimenting  upon  its  muscles  with 
curari  powder,  and  afterwards  trying  the  effect  of 
galvanizing  them.  Your  father  was  always  very 
careful  about  poisons,  never  leaving  any  of  the  bottles 
about ;  but  on  this  occasion  he  was  called  away  sud- 
denly, and  left  the  vial  with  the  curari  on  the  sur- 
gery table.  I  went  on  making  up  the  prescription, 
and  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  any  mistake,  slipped 
(as  I  thought)  the  bottle  containing  the  poison  into 
my  coat-pocket,  as  my  hands  were  greasy  with  mixing 
the  ointment,  meaning  to  replace  it  in  the  cupboard 
as  soon  as  I  was  finished.  I  mixed  the  ointment  and 
sent  it  oft',  and  immediately  went  home  to  my  own 
lodgings,  intending  to  start  for  Margate  early  in  the 
morning.  I  did  so,  and  spent  the  day  on  the  sands, 
in  utter  ignorance  of  what  had  meanwhile  happened. 
In  the  evening,  I  returned  on  board  the  steamer.  It 
was  the  Princess  Amelia.  You  remember  the  acci- 
dent —  all  the  world  remembers  it  —  it  happened 
the  very  night  after  the  supposed  murder.  We  col- 
lided with  an  outward  bound  New  Zealand  steamer ; 
almost  every  soul  on  board  perished  helplessly ;  a 
few  alone  were  picked  up  here  and  there  by  the  boats 
belonging  to  passing  vessels.     I  was  among  them  ;  a 


A    TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  58 

steamer  of  the  Monarch  line  for  New  York  put  out  a 
boat,  and  took  me  on  board,  half  drowned  and  sense- 
less. I  was  ill  on  the  ship  till  we  reached  America  — 
delirious  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time,  and  unable 
so  much  as  to  give  my  name  to  the  ship's  surgeon. 

"  When  I  landed  at  New  York,  they  dressed  me 
once  more  in  my  own  clothes,  and  took  me  up  to  the 
Metropolitan  Hospital.  As  they  put  me  to  bed  again, 
faint  and  weak,  one  of  the  nurses  took  a  bottle  from 
my  pocket  with  the  label  on  it,  '  Sulphide  of  Zinc,'  in 
big  black  letters.  Ill  as  I  was,  I  looked  at  it  with 
horror.  In  a  second,  the  terrible  truth  flashed  upon 
my  mind.  I  had  put  the  wrong  vial  in  my  pocket. 
I  had  given  Colonel  Lichfield  curari  in  his  oint- 
ment ! 

"  As  I  lay  there  tossing  and  turning  in  the  hospital 
cot,  the  terror  of  my  mistake  grew  ever  deeper  and 
deeper  upon  me ;  I  was  afraid  to  give  my  right  name ; 
I  said  merely  it  was  Withers  of  London.  I  chose  a 
name  beginning  with  a  W,  because  my  initials  were 
everywhere  marked  upon  my  linen,  not  in  full,  as 
C.  G.  Waterlow.  Nobody  had  known  I  was  on  board 
the  Princess  Amelia.  I  hadn't  said  a  word  about  it 
to  the  people  at  my  lodgings,  nor  had  I  mentioned 
the  use  I  meant  to  make  of  my  holiday  to  Dr.  Lich- 
field. I  knew  enough  of  the  effects  of  curari  to  know 
perfectly  that  I  must  unintentionally  have  killed  the 
Colonel.  I  thought  my  absence  would  be  mistaken 
for  flight,  and  that  I  would  immediately  be  suspected 
of  intentionally  poisoning  him." 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact,"  Sergeant  Thorowgood  inter- 
posed, "  you  were  the  one  person  whose  character  and 
motives  nobody  even  for  a  moment  called  in  ques- 
tion." 


54  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

Dr.  Withers  nodded.  "  So  I  afterwards  learned," 
he  continued  with  an  effort.  "  But  at  the  time  I  could 
think  of  absolutely  nothing  but  my  own  safety.  Had 
I  had  the  courage  to  tell  the  whole  truth  at  once,  I 
might  have  saved  endless  anxiety  and  distress  to 
several  innocent  people,  I  know.  But  I  had  not  the 
courage,  and  I  feared  too  much  for  my  own  life.  As 
soon  as  I  was  well  enough,  I  sent  out  and  got  a  news- 
paper. There  I  read  the  full  account  of  the  Erith 
murder,  as  everybody  called  it.  I  learned  to  my  hor- 
ror that  Dr.  Lichfield  had  died  in  prison,  under  the 
smart  of  this  terrible  imputation,  and  that  nobody  in 
England  knew  what  had  become  of  me.  I  felt  sure 
there  were  only  two  people,  besides  myself,  upon 
whom  suspicion  could  possibly  have  fallen  —  Dr. 
Lichfield  and  Mr.  Flamstead.  The  doctor  was  dead, 
and  nobody  seemed  to  hate  doubted  Mr.  Flamstead. 
For  the  sake  of  my  late  employer's  family,  if  I  could 
have  traced  them,  I  might,  a  little  later,  have  come 
forward  and  told  the  whole  truth.  But  at  first  I  was 
afraid,  and  later  on,  when  I  tried  to  track  them,  I 
found  it  hopeless.  Mrs.  Lichfield  had  disappeared 
into  thin  air,  and  all  attempts  to  discover  her  where- 
abouts were  utterly  unavailing.  I  stopped  in  Amer- 
ica, under  my  assumed  name,  and  soon  obtained  a 
place  as  a  doctor's  assistant.  I  was  an  orphan,  with 
very  few  friends  in  England:  the  few  1  had  cared 
little  about  me :  everybody  said  I  had  been  spirited 
away  by  the  Lichfields  and  their  allies,  and  I  had  not 
the  strength  of  mind  to  come  forward  and  deny  that 
baseless  calumny.  I  know  I  have  much  need  to  ask 
your  forgiveness  —  but  for  years  and  years  1  have  suf- 
fered greatly.     Can  you  forgive  me  ?  " 

Sir  Arthur  Woolrych  bowed  his  head.     "  You  did 


1' 


A   TEERIBLE  INHEIilTANCE.  55 

very  wrong,"  he  said,  "  but  I  forgive  you  freely.     Can 
you,  Harry,  for  yourself  and  your  family  ?  " 

"  I  can,"  Harry  answered  in  a  low  tone.  "  And  I 
thank  you  now  for  coming  forward  at  last  to  make 
this  statement." 

There  was  a  moment's  pause,  and  then  the  Sergeant 
asked  quietly,  "  Will  you  make  an  affidavit  as  to  all 
these  particulars  ?  " 

Dr.  Withers  bent  his  head  in  acquiescence.  "  When- 
ever you  please,"  he  said.  "  And  the  affidavit  may  be 
publicly  printed  in  all  the  papers." 

The  Sergeant  rose  and  moved  towards  the  General. 
"  Sir  Arthur,"  he  said,  "  give  me  your  hand.  For 
twenty-five  years,  I  admit,  I  have  unjustly  suspected 
you.  But  I  suspected  you  only  because  of  the  fervor 
of  my  faith  in  a  man  whom  I  believed  and  felt  to  be 
innocent.'  I  could  not  distrust  Dr.  Lichfield.  He 
died  in  the  full  confidence  that  his  character  and  good 
name  would  at  last  be  established  ;  and  after  so  long 
a  time,  he  is  now  finally  and  triumphantly  vindicated. 
It  was  not  so  much  that  I  suspected  you,  as  that  I 
could  see  no  other  possible  alternative.  And  I  couldn't 
disbelieve  Dr.  Lichfield." 

The  old  officer  gave  him  his  hand  with  the  tears 
running  unrestrained  down  his  cheek.  ''AH  this 
time,"  he  said,  with  sobs  half  choking  his  faint  utter- 
ance, "  I  have  known  that  at  any  moment  the  ques- 
tion might  be  re-opened,  and  that  to  re-open  it  would 
mean  to  cast  suspicion  upon  me.  At  the  moment  of 
the  trial,  I  too  acknowledge,  I  committed  one  great 
wrong  and  indiscretion.  Having  known  Lichfield  as 
an  intimate  friend,  and  finding  that  Waterlow  was 
being  kept  out  of  the  way,  as  I  believed,  to  prevent 
his  giving  adverse  evidence,  I  tried  to  divert  suspicion 


56  A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE. 

* 

from  the  circumstance  (meaning  thereby  to  defeat 
the  ends  of  justice),  and,  I  fear,  to  some  extent  mis- 
led the  jury.  Ever  since,  I  have  been  only  too  sensi- 
ble of  my  wrong-doing  and  my  error.  I  have  bitterly 
repented  it  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  I  have  seen  that 
if  ever  the  matter  were  investigated,  and  it  were  dis- 
covered that  I  had  curari  in  my  possession  at  the 
time,  my  action  would  surely  be  misunderstood,  and 
suspicion  cast  unduly  upon  myself,  to  the  infinite 
misery  of  my  wife  and  daughter.  At  the  time,  I  was 
anxious  to  serve  Dr.  Lichfield's  interests  :  I  see  now, 
that,  here  as  usual,  the  plain,  straightforward,  honor- 
able conduct  would  also  have  been  the  safest  and  the 
most  advisable." 

"  It  would,"  the  Sergeant  assented  gravely.  "  It 
would,  it  would,  indeed.  Sir  Arthur." 

"  We  two  have  both  done  wrong,"  Dr.  Withers  put 
in;  " but  I  ten  thousand  times  more  than  you.  And 
we  have  both  had  our  full  punishment ;  for  the  secret 
has  worn  me  out  prematurely,  and  is  killing  me  now 
with  its  ceaseless  anxiety." 

"  But  it  is  upon  you  and  yours,  Harry,"  Sir  Arthur 
said,  still  grasping  the  young  man's  hand  with  a  spas- 
modic pressure,  "  that  the  brunt  of  the  misfortune  has 
fallen  most  heavily.  It  is  always  so  with  all  wrong- 
doing. Not  only  does  punishment  come  upon  those 
who  themselves  do  the  wrong,  but  it  involves  others 
in  an  ever-widening  circle.  You,  your  mother,  and 
your  sister,  my  boy,  have  suffered  vicariously,  and  so 
have  Lady  Woolrych  and  Bertha.  It  must  be  our 
duty  next  to  repair  the  evil  as  far  as  possible ;  and 
in  that  attempt  Dr.  Withers,  I  know,  will  give  us  his 
assistance." 

The  stranger  nodded  with  a  sorrowful  smile.     "I 


A   TERRIBLE  INHERITANCE.  57 

have  only  one  desire  left  in  life,"  he  said  ;  "  to  undo 
as  far  as  in  me  lies  the  mischief  wrought  by  my  care- 
lessness and  cowardice." 

Sir  Arthur  turned  once  more  to  the  young  man. 
"  And  now,  Harry,"  he  said,  with  a  happier  light  in 
his  keen  gray  eyes,  "  you  and  Bertha  will  marry  one 
another." 


